Walter de la Mare
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- Speak not -- whisper not;
- Here bloweth thyme and bergamot;
- Softly on the evening hour,
- Secret herbs their spices shower,
- Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh,
- Lean-stalked, purple lavender;
- Hides within her bosom, too
- All her sorrows, bitter rue.
- Breathe not -- trespass not;
- Of this green and darkling spot.,
- Latticed form the moon's beams,
- Perchance a distant dreamer dreams;
- Perchance upon its darkening air,
- The unseen ghosts of children fare,
- Faintly swinging, sway and sweep,
- Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep;
- While, unmoved to watch and ward,
- 'Mid its gloomed and saisied sward,
- Stands with bowed and dewy head
- That one little leaden Lad.
- The far moon maketh lovers wise
- In her pale beauty trembling down,
- Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes,
- A strangeness not their own.
- And, though they shut their lids to kiss,
- In starless darkness peace to win,
- Even on that secret world from this
- Her twilight enters in.
- Flee into some forgotten night and be
- Of all dark long my moon-bright company:
- Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come,
- There, out of all remembrance, make our home:
- Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair,
- Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair
- Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound,
- Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound.
- Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea
- Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me,
- There of your beauty we would joyance make --
- A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake:
- Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire,
- Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre,
- Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space,
- Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace,
- Where two might happy be -- just you and I --
- Lost in the uttermost Eternity.
- Think I in Time's smallest clock's minutest beat
- Might there not rest be found for wandering feet?
- Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of Helen's dream,
- Silence wherein to sing love's requiem?
- No, no. Nor earth, nor air, nor fire, nor deep
- Could lull poor mortal longingness asleep.
- Somewhere there nothing is; and there lost Man
- Shall win what changeless vague of peace he can.
- Upon this leafy bush
- With thorns and roses in it,
- Flutters a thing of light,
- A twittering linnet.
- And all the throbbing world
- Of dew and sun and air
- By this small parcel of life
- Is made more fair;
- As if each bramble-spray
- And mounded gold-wreathed furze,
- Harebell and little thyme,
- Were only hers;
- As if this beauty and grace
- Did to one bird belong,
- And, at a flutter of wing,
- Might vanish in song.
- I think and think: yet still I fail --
- Why must this lady wear a veil?
- Why thus elect to mask her face
- Beneath that dainty web of lace?
- The tip of a small nose I see,
- And two red lips, set curiously
- Like twin-born berries on one stem,
- And yet, she has netted even them.
- Her eyes, 'tis plain, survey with ease
- Whate'er to glance upon they please.
- Yet, whether hazel, gray, or blue,
- Or that even lovelier lilac hue,
- I cannot guess: why -- why deny
- Such beauty to the passer-by?
- Out of a bush a nightingale
- May expound his song; from 'neath that veil
- A happy mouth no doubt can make
- English sould sweeeter for its sake.
- But then, why muffle in like this
- What every blossomy wind would kiss?
- Why in that little night disguise
- A daybreak face, those starry eyes?
- Far are those tranquil hills,
- Dyed with fair evening's rose;
- On urgent, secret errand bent
- A traveller goes.
- Approach him strangers three,
- Barefooted, cowled; their eyes
- Scan the lone, hastening solitary
- With dumb surmise.
- One instant in close speech
- With them he doth confer:
- God-sped, he hasteneth on,
- That anxious traveller . . .
- I was that man -- in a dream;
- And each world's night in vain
- I patient wait on sleep to unveil
- Those vivid hills again.
- Would that they three could know
- How yet burns on in me
- Love -- from one lost in Paradise --
- For their grave courtesy.
- Old and alone, sit we,
- Caged, riddle-rid men;
- Lost to earth's "Listen!" and "See!"
- Thought's "Wherefore?" and "When?"
- Only far memories stray
- Of a past once lovely, but now
- Wasted and faded away,
- Like green leaves from the bough.
- Vast broods the silence of night,
- The ruinous moon
- Lifts on our faces her light,
- Whence all dreaming is gone.
- We speak not; trembles each head;
- In their sockets our eyes are still;
- Desire as cold as the dead;
- Without wonder or will.
- And One, with a lanthorn, draws near,
- At clash with the moon in our eyes:
- "Where are thou?" he asks: "I am here,"
- One by one we arise.
- And none lifts a hand to withhold
- A friend from the touch of that foe:
- Heart cries unto heart, "Thou art old!"
- Yet reluctant, we go.
- When I lie where shades of darkness
- Shall no more assail mine eyes,
- Nor the rain make lamentation
- When the wind sighs;
- How will fare the world whose wonder
- Was the very proof of me?
- Memory fades, must the remembered
- Perishing be?
- Oh, when this my dust surrenders
- Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
- May those loved and loving faces
- Please other men!
- May the rusting harvest hedgerow
- Still the Traveller's Joy entwine,
- And as happy children gather
- Posies once mine.
- Look thy last on all things lovely,
- Every hour. Let no night
- Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
- Till to delight
- Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
- Since that all things thou wouldst praise
- Beauty took from those who loved them
- In other days.