Desertion

So light we were, so right we were, so fair faith shone,

And the way was laid so certainly, that, when I'd gone,

What dumb thing looked up at you? Was it something heard,

Or a sudden cry, that meekly and without a word

You broke the faith, and strangely, weakly, slipped apart.

You gave in -- - you, the proud of heart, unbowed of heart!

Was this, friend, the end of all that we could do?

And have you found the best for you, the rest for you?

Did you learn so suddenly (and I not by!)

Some whispered story, that stole the glory from the sky,

And ended all the splendid dream, and made you go

So dully from the fight we know, the light we know?

O faithless! the faith remains, and I must pass

Gay down the way, and on alone. Under the grass

You wait; the breeze moves in the trees, and stirs, and calls,

And covers you with white petals, with light petals.

There it shall crumble, frail and fair, under the sun,

O little heart, your brittle heart; till day be done,

And the shadows gather, falling light, and, white with dew,

Whisper, and weep; and creep to you. Good sleep to you!

1914

I. Peace

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,

And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,

With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,

To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,

Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,

Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,

And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,

And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,

Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,

      Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;

Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there

But only agony, and that has ending;

       And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

II. Safety

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest

      He who has found our hid security,

Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,

      And heard our word, `Who is so safe as we?'

We have found safety with all things undying,

      The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,

The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,

      And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.

We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.

      We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.

War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,

      Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;

Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;

And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

III. The Dead

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!

      There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,

      But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

These laid the world away; poured out the red

Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be

      Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,

      That men call age; and those who would have been,

Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,

      Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.

Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,

      And paid his subjects with a royal wage;

And Nobleness walks in our ways again;

      And we have come into our heritage.

IV. The Dead

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,

      Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.

The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,

      And sunset, and the colours of the earth.

These had seen movement, and heard music; known

      Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;

Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;

      Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter

And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,

      Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance

And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white

      Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,

A width, a shining peace, under the night.

V. The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:

      That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

      In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

      Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

      Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

      A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

      And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

The Treasure

When colour goes home into the eyes,

      And lights that shine are shut again

With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries

      Behind the gateways of the brain;

And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close

The rainbow and the rose: -- -

Still may Time hold some golden space

      Where I'll unpack that scented store

Of song and flower and sky and face,

      And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,

Musing upon them; as a mother, who

Has watched her children all the rich day through

Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,

When children sleep, ere night.

The South Seas

Tiare Tahiti

Mamua, when our laughter ends,

And hearts and bodies, brown as white,

Are dust about the doors of friends,

Or scent ablowing down the night,

Then, oh! then, the wise agree,

Comes our immortality.

Mamua, there waits a land

Hard for us to understand.

Out of time, beyond the sun,

All are one in Paradise,

You and Pupure are one,

And Tau, and the ungainly wise.

There the Eternals are, and there

The Good, the Lovely, and the True,

And Types, whose earthly copies were

The foolish broken things we knew;

There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;

The real, the never-setting Star;

And the Flower, of which we love

Faint and fading shadows here;

Never a tear, but only Grief;

Dance, but not the limbs that move;

Songs in Song shall disappear;

Instead of lovers, Love shall be;

For hearts, Immutability;

And there, on the Ideal Reef,

Thunders the Everlasting Sea!

And my laughter, and my pain,

Shall home to the Eternal Brain.

And all lovely things, they say,

Meet in Loveliness again;

Miri's laugh, Teipo's feet,

And the hands of Matua,

Stars and sunlight there shall meet,

Coral's hues and rainbows there,

And Teura's braided hair;

And with the starred `tiare's' white,

And white birds in the dark ravine,

And `flamboyants' ablaze at night,

And jewels, and evening's after-green,

And dawns of pearl and gold and red,

Mamua, your lovelier head!

And there'll no more be one who dreams

Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff,

Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems,

All time-entangled human love.

And you'll no longer swing and sway

Divinely down the scented shade,

Where feet to Ambulation fade,

And moons are lost in endless Day.

How shall we wind these wreaths of ours,

Where there are neither heads nor flowers?

Oh, Heaven's Heaven! -- - but we'll be missing

The palms, and sunlight, and the south;

And there's an end, I think, of kissing,

When our mouths are one with Mouth. . . .

`Tau here', Mamua,

Crown the hair, and come away!

Hear the calling of the moon,

And the whispering scents that stray

About the idle warm lagoon.

Hasten, hand in human hand,

Down the dark, the flowered way,

Along the whiteness of the sand,

And in the water's soft caress,

Wash the mind of foolishness,

Mamua, until the day.

Spend the glittering moonlight there

Pursuing down the soundless deep

Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,

Or floating lazy, half-asleep.

Dive and double and follow after,

Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,

With lips that fade, and human laughter

And faces individual,

Well this side of Paradise! . . .

There's little comfort in the wise.

Retrospect

In your arms was still delight,

Quiet as a street at night;

And thoughts of you, I do remember,

Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,

Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.

Love, in you, went passing by,

Penetrative, remote, and rare,

Like a bird in the wide air,

And, as the bird, it left no trace

In the heaven of your face.

In your stupidity I found

The sweet hush after a sweet sound.

All about you was the light

That dims the greying end of night;

Desire was the unrisen sun,

Joy the day not yet begun,

With tree whispering to tree,

Without wind, quietly.

Wisdom slept within your hair,

And Long-Suffering was there,

And, in the flowing of your dress,

Undiscerning Tenderness.

And when you thought, it seemed to me,

Infinitely, and like a sea,

About the slight world you had known

Your vast unconsciousness was thrown. . . .

O haven without wave or tide!

Silence, in which all songs have died!

Holy book, where hearts are still!

And home at length under the hill!

O mother quiet, breasts of peace,

Where love itself would faint and cease!

O infinite deep I never knew,

I would come back, come back to you,

Find you, as a pool unstirred,

Kneel down by you, and never a word,

Lay my head, and nothing said,

In your hands, ungarlanded;

And a long watch you would keep;

And I should sleep, and I should sleep!

The Great Lover

I have been so great a lover: filled my days

So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,

The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,

Desire illimitable, and still content,

And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,

For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear

Our hearts at random down the dark of life.

Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife

Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,

My night shall be remembered for a star

That outshone all the suns of all men's days.

Shall I not crown them with immortal praise

Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me

High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see

The inenarrable godhead of delight?

Love is a flame; -- - we have beaconed the world's night.

A city: -- - and we have built it, these and I.

An emperor: -- - we have taught the world to die.

So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,

And the high cause of Love's magnificence,

And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names

Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,

And set them as a banner, that men may know,

To dare the generations, burn, and blow

Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .

These I have loved:

                            White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,

Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, færy dust;

Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust

Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;

Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;

And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;

And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,

Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;

Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon

Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss

Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is

Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen

Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;

The benison of hot water; furs to touch;

The good smell of old clothes; and other such -- -

The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,

Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers

About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .

                            Dear names,

And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;

Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;

Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;

Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,

Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;

Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam

That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;

And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold

Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;

Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;

And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;

And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; -- -

All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,

Whatever passes not, in the great hour,

Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power

To hold them with me through the gate of Death.

They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,

Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust

And sacramented covenant to the dust.

---- Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,

And give what's left of love again, and make

New friends, now strangers. . . .

                            But the best I've known,

Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown

About the winds of the world, and fades from brains

Of living men, and dies.

                            Nothing remains.

O dear my loves, O faithless, once again

This one last gift I give: that after men

Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,

Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

Heaven

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,

Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)

Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,

Each secret fishy hope or fear.

Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;

But is there anything Beyond?

This life cannot be All, they swear,

For how unpleasant, if it were!

One may not doubt that, somehow, Good

Shall come of Water and of Mud;

And, sure, the reverent eye must see

A Purpose in Liquidity.

We darkly know, by Faith we cry,

The future is not Wholly Dry.

Mud unto mud! -- - Death eddies near -- -

Not here the appointed End, not here!

But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.

Is wetter water, slimier slime!

And there (they trust) there swimmeth One

Who swam ere rivers were begun,

Immense, of fishy form and mind,

Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;

And under that Almighty Fin,

The littlest fish may enter in.

Oh! never fly conceals a hook,

Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,

But more than mundane weeds are there,

And mud, celestially fair;

Fat caterpillars drift around,

And Paradisal grubs are found;

Unfading moths, immortal flies,

And the worm that never dies.

And in that Heaven of all their wish,

There shall be no more land, say fish.

Doubts

When she sleeps, her soul, I know,

Goes a wanderer on the air,

Wings where I may never go,

Leaves her lying, still and fair,

Waiting, empty, laid aside,

Like a dress upon a chair. . . .

This I know, and yet I know

Doubts that will not be denied.

For if the soul be not in place,

What has laid trouble in her face?

And, sits there nothing ware and wise

Behind the curtains of her eyes,

What is it, in the self's eclipse,

Shadows, soft and passingly,

About the corners of her lips,

The smile that is essential she?

And if the spirit be not there,

Why is fragrance in the hair?

There's Wisdom in Women

"Oh love is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,

"But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head,

And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she;

So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.

But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known,

And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own,

Or how should my dear one, being ignorant and young,

Have cried on love so bitterly, with so true a tongue?

He Wonders Whether to Praise or to Blame Her

I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over,

      But if to praise or blame you, cannot say.

For, who decries the loved, decries the lover;

      Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away?

Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught,

      The more fool I, so great a fool to adore;

But if you're that high goddess once I thought,

      The more your godhead is, I lose the more.

Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever!

      Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you!

Most fair, -- - the blind has lost your face for ever!

      Most foul, -- - how could I see you while I kissed you?

So . . . the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you,

For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you.

A Memory (From a sonnet-sequence)

Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept

      Softly along the dim way to your room,

      And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,

And holiness about you as you slept.

I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept

      About my head, and held it. I had rest

      Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.

I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.

It was great wrong you did me; and for gain

Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease,

And sleepy mother-comfort!

                            Child, you know

How easily love leaps out to dreams like these,

Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so

Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

One Day

Today I have been happy. All the day

      I held the memory of you, and wove

Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,

      And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,

And sent you following the white waves of sea,

      And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,

Stray buds from that old dust of misery,

      Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.

So lightly I played with those dark memories,

Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,

      Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,

For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,

      And love has been betrayed, and murder done,

And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.