Chapter 7

A song in a cornfield Where corn begins to fall, Where reapers are reaping, Reaping one, reaping all. Sing pretty Lettice, Sing Rachel, sing May; Only Marian cannot sing While her sweetheart's away.

Where is he gone to And why does he stay? 10 He came across the green sea But for a day, Across the deep green sea To help with the hay.

His hair was curly yellow And his eyes were grey, He laughed a merry laugh And said a sweet say. Where is he gone to That he comes not home? 20 To-day or to-morrow He surely will come. Let him haste to joy Lest he lag for sorrow, For one weeps to-day Who'll not weep to-morrow: To-day she must weep For gnawing sorrow, To-night she may sleep And not wake to-morrow. 30

May sang with Rachel In the waxing warm weather, Lettice sang with them, They sang all together:--

'Take the wheat in your arm Whilst day is broad above, Take the wheat to your bosom, But not a false love. Out in the fields Summer heat gloweth, 40 Out in the fields Summer wind bloweth, Out in the fields Summer friend showeth, Out in the fields Summer wheat groweth; But in the winter When summer heat is dead And summer wind has veered And summer friend has fled, 50 Only summer wheat remaineth, White cakes and bread. Take the wheat, clasp the wheat That's food for maid and dove; Take the wheat to your bosom, But not a false false love.'

A silence of full noontide heat Grew on them at their toil: The farmer's dog woke up from sleep, The green snake hid her coil. 60 Where grass stood thickest, bird and beast Sought shadows as they could, The reaping men and women paused And sat down where they stood; They ate and drank and were refreshed, For rest from toil is good.

While the reapers took their ease, Their sickles lying by, Rachel sang a second strain, And singing seemed to sigh:-- 70

'There goes the swallow-- Could we but follow! Hasty swallow stay, Point us out the way; Look back swallow, turn back swallow, stop swallow.

'There went the swallow-- Too late to follow: Lost our note of way, Lost our chance to-day; Good bye swallow, sunny swallow, wise swallow. 80

'After the swallow All sweet things follow: All things go their way, Only we must stay, Must not follow; good bye swallow, good swallow.'

Then listless Marian raised her head Among the nodding sheaves; Her voice was sweeter than that voice; She sang like one who grieves: Her voice was sweeter than its wont 90 Among the nodding sheaves; All wondered while they heard her sing Like one who hopes and grieves:--

'Deeper than the hail can smite, Deeper than the frost can bite, Deep asleep through day and night, Our delight.

'Now thy sleep no pang can break, No to-morrow bid thee wake, Not our sobs who sit and ache 100 For thy sake.

'Is it dark or light below? Oh, but is it cold like snow? Dost thou feel the green things grow Fast or slow?

'Is it warm or cold beneath, Oh, but is it cold like death? Cold like death, without a breath, Cold like death?'

If he comes to-day 110 He will find her weeping; If he comes to-morrow He will find her sleeping; If he comes the next day He'll not find her at all, He may tear his curling hair, Beat his breast and call.

A YEAR'S WINDFALLS

On the wind of January Down flits the snow, Travelling from the frozen North As cold as it can blow. Poor robin redbreast, Look where he comes; Let him in to feel your fire, And toss him of your crumbs.

On the wind in February Snowflakes float still, 10 Half inclined to turn to rain, Nipping, dripping, chill. Then the thaws swell the streams, And swollen rivers swell the sea:-- If the winter ever ends How pleasant it will be!

In the wind of windy March The catkins drop down, Curly, caterpillar-like, Curious green and brown. 20 With concourse of nest-building birds And leaf-buds by the way, We begin to think of flowers And life and nuts some day.

With the gusts of April Rich fruit-tree blossoms fall, On the hedged-in orchard-green, From the southern wall. Apple-trees and pear-trees Shed petals white or pink, 30 Plum-trees and peach-trees; While sharp showers sink and sink.

Little brings the May breeze Beside pure scent of flowers, While all things wax and nothing wanes In lengthening daylight hours. Across the hyacinth beds The wind lags warm and sweet, Across the hawthorn tops, Across the blades of wheat. 40

In the wind of sunny June Thrives the red rose crop, Every day fresh blossoms blow While the first leaves drop; White rose and yellow rose And moss-rose choice to find, And the cottage cabbage-rose Not one whit behind.

On the blast of scorched July Drives the pelting hail, 50 From thunderous lightning-clouds, that blot Blue heaven grown lurid-pale. Weedy waves are tossed ashore, Sea-things strange to sight Gasp upon the barren shore And fade away in light.

In the parching August wind Corn-fields bow the head, Sheltered in round valley depths, On low hills outspread. 60 Early leaves drop loitering down Weightless on the breeze, First fruits of the year's decay From the withering trees.

In brisk wind of September The heavy-headed fruits Shake upon their bending boughs And drop from the shoots; Some glow golden in the sun, Some show green and streaked, 70 Some set forth a purple bloom, Some blush rosy-cheeked.

In strong blast of October At the equinox, Stirred up in his hollow bed Broad ocean rocks; Plunge the ships on his bosom, Leaps and plunges the foam,-- It's oh! for mothers' sons at sea, That they were safe at home. 80

In slack wind of November The fog forms and shifts; All the world comes out again When the fog lifts. Loosened from their sapless twigs Leaves drop with every gust; Drifting, rustling, out of sight In the damp or dust.

Last of all, December, The year's sands nearly run, 90 Speeds on the shortest day, Curtails the sun; With its bleak raw wind Lays the last leaves low, Brings back the nightly frosts, Brings back the snow.

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we Play cards together, you invariably, However the pack parts, Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze, Resolved to fathom these your secret ways: But, sift them as I will, Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again; But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain: 10 Vain hope, vain forethought too; The Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel: 'There should be one card more,' You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once; I made a private notch In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch; Yet such another back Deceived me in the pack: 20

The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown An imitative dint that seemed my own; This notch, not of my doing, Misled me to my ruin.

It baffles me to puzzle out the clue, Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you: Unless, indeed, it be Natural affinity.

ONE DAY

I will tell you when they met: In the limpid days of Spring; Elder boughs were budding yet, Oaken boughs looked wintry still, But primrose and veined violet In the mossful turf were set, While meeting birds made haste to sing And build with right good will.

I will tell you when they parted: When plenteous Autumn sheaves were brown, 10 Then they parted heavy-hearted; The full rejoicing sun looked down As grand as in the days before; Only they had lost a crown; Only to them those days of yore Could come back nevermore.

When shall they meet? I cannot tell, Indeed, when they shall meet again, Except some day in Paradise: For this they wait, one waits in pain. 20 Beyond the sea of death love lies For ever, yesterday, to-day; Angels shall ask them, 'Is it well?' And they shall answer, 'Yea.'

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

'Croak, croak, croak,' Thus the Raven spoke, Perched on his crooked tree As hoarse as hoarse could be. Shun him and fear him, Lest the Bridegroom hear him; Scout him and rout him With his ominous eye about him.

Yet, 'Croak, croak, croak,' Still tolled from the oak; 10 From that fatal black bird, Whether heard or unheard: 'O ship upon the high seas, Freighted with lives and spices, Sink, O ship,' croaked the Raven: 'Let the Bride mount to heaven.'

In a far foreign land, Upon the wave-edged sand, Some friends gaze wistfully Across the glittering sea. 20 'If we could clasp our sister,' Three say, 'now we have missed her!' 'If we could kiss our daughter!' Two sigh across the water.

Oh, the ship sails fast With silken flags at the mast, And the home-wind blows soft; But a Raven sits aloft, Chuckling and choking, Croaking, croaking, croaking:-- 30 Let the beacon-fire blaze higher; Bridegroom, watch; the Bride draws nigher.

On a sloped sandy beach, Which the spring-tide billows reach, Stand a watchful throng Who have hoped and waited long: 'Fie on this ship, that tarries With the priceless freight it carries. The time seems long and longer: O languid wind, wax stronger;'-- 40

Whilst the Raven perched at ease Still croaks and does not cease, One monotonous note Tolled from his iron throat: 'No father, no mother, But I have a sable brother: He sees where ocean flows to, And he knows what he knows, too.'

A day and a night They kept watch worn and white; 50 A night and a day For the swift ship on its way: For the Bride and her maidens --Clear chimes the bridal cadence-- For the tall ship that never Hove in sight for ever.

On either shore, some Stand in grief loud or dumb As the dreadful dread Grows certain though unsaid. 60 For laughter there is weeping, And waking instead of sleeping, And a desperate sorrow Morrow after morrow.

Oh, who knows the truth, How she perished in her youth, And like a queen went down Pale in her royal crown: How she went up to glory From the sea-foam chill and hoary, 70 From the sea-depth black and riven To the calm that is in Heaven?

They went down, all the crew, The silks and spices too, The great ones and the small, One and all, one and all. Was it through stress of weather, Quicksands, rocks, or all together? Only the Raven knows this, And he will not disclose this.-- 80

After a day and year The bridal bells chime clear; After a year and a day The Bridegroom is brave and gay: Love is sound, faith is rotten; The old Bride is forgotten:-- Two ominous Ravens only Remember, black and lonely.

LIGHT LOVE

'Oh, sad thy lot before I came, But sadder when I go; My presence but a flash of flame, A transitory glow Between two barren wastes like snow. What wilt thou do when I am gone, Where wilt thou rest, my dear? For cold thy bed to rest upon, And cold the falling year Whose withered leaves are lost and sere.' 10

She hushed the baby at her breast, She rocked it on her knee: 'And I will rest my lonely rest, Warmed with the thought of thee, Rest lulled to rest by memory.' She hushed the baby with her kiss, She hushed it with her breast: 'Is death so sadder much than this-- Sure death that builds a nest For those who elsewhere cannot rest?' 20

'Oh, sad thy note, my mateless dove, With tender nestling cold; But hast thou ne'er another love Left from the days of old, To build thy nest of silk and gold, To warm thy paleness to a blush When I am far away-- To warm thy coldness to a flush, And turn thee back to May, And turn thy twilight back to day?' 30

She did not answer him again, But leaned her face aside, Weary with the pang of shame and pain, And sore with wounded pride: He knew his very soul had lied. She strained his baby in her arms, His baby to her heart: 'Even let it go, the love that harms: We twain will never part; Mine own, his own, how dear thou art.' 40

'Now never teaze me, tender-eyed, Sigh-voiced,' he said in scorn: 'For nigh at hand there blooms a bride, My bride before the morn; Ripe-blooming she, as thou forlorn. Ripe-blooming she, my rose, my peach; She woos me day and night: I watch her tremble in my reach; She reddens, my delight, She ripens, reddens in my sight.' 50

'And is she like a sunlit rose? Am I like withered leaves? Haste where thy spicèd garden blows: But in bare Autumn eves Wilt thou have store of harvest sheaves? Thou leavest love, true love behind, To seek a love as true; Go, seek in haste: but wilt thou find? Change new again for new; Pluck up, enjoy--yea, trample too. 60

'Alas for her, poor faded rose, Alas for her her, like me, Cast down and trampled in the snows.' 'Like thee? nay, not like thee: She leans, but from a guarded tree. Farewell, and dream as long ago, Before we ever met: Farewell; my swift-paced horse seems slow.' She raised her eyes, not wet But hard, to Heaven: 'Does God forget?' 70

A DREAM

Sonnet

Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you) We stood together in an open field; Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled, Sporting at ease and courting full in view. When loftier still a broadening darkness flew, Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed; Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield; So farewell life and love and pleasures new. Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground, Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops, I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep: But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.

A RING POSY

Jess and Jill are pretty girls, Plump and well to do, In a cloud of windy curls: Yet I know who Loves me more than curls or pearls.

I'm not pretty, not a bit-- Thin and sallow-pale; When I trudge along the street I don't need a veil: Yet I have one fancy hit. 10

Jess and Jill can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's I who wear the ring.

Jess and Jill will mate some day, Surely, surely: Ripen on to June through May, While the sun shines make their hay, Slacken steps demurely: 20 Yet even there I lead the way.

BEAUTY IS VAIN

While roses are so red, While lilies are so white, Shall a woman exalt her face Because it gives delight? She's not so sweet as a rose, A lily's straighter than she, And if she were as red or white She'd be but one of three.

Whether she flush in love's summer Or in its winter grow pale, 10 Whether she flaunt her beauty Or hide it away in a veil, Be she red or white, And stand she erect or bowed, Time will win the race he runs with her And hide her away in a shroud.

LADY MAGGIE

You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear, For I'm Lady of the Manor now stately to see; And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year, 'Twill be little lord or lady at my knee.

Oh, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil, That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost? You're as white as I turned once down by the mill, When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:

Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl (It was the Miller's Nancy told it to me), 10 Philip with the merry life in lip and curl, Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!

I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint; I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad, Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.

They said I looked so pale--some say so fair-- My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life: I know I missed a ringlet from my hair Next morning; and now I am his wife. 20

Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring, I'm all crimson and gold from top to toe: All day long I sit in the sun and sing, Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.

And I'm the rose of roses says my lord; And to him I'm more than the sun in the sky, While I hold him fast with the golden cord Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.

His mother said 'fie,' and his sisters cried 'shame,' His highborn ladies cried 'shame' from their place: 30 They said 'fie' when they only heard my name, But fell silent when they saw my face.

Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think I was so fair when we played boy and girl, Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent a whirl?

If I was fair then sure I'm fairer now, Sitting where a score of servants stand, With a coronet on high days for my brow And almost a sceptre for my hand. 40

You're but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown, A stranger on land and at home on the sea, Coasting as best you may from town to town: Coasting along do you often think of me?

I'm a great lady in a sheltered bower, With hands grown white through having nought to do: Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour Till I nigh wish myself a child with you.

WHAT WOULD I GIVE?

What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through, Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do; Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all.

What would I give for words, if only words would come; But now in its misery my spirit has fallen dumb: Oh, merry friends, go your own way, I have never a word to say.

What would I give for tears, not smiles but scalding tears, To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years, To wash the stain ingrain and to make me clean again.

THE BOURNE

Underneath the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass.

Youth and health will be but vain, Beauty reckoned of no worth: There a very little girth Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain.

SUMMER

Winter is cold-hearted Spring is yea and nay, Autumn is a weather-cock Blown every way: Summer days for me When every leaf is on its tree;

When Robin's not a beggar, And Jenny Wren's a bride, And larks hang singing, singing, singing, Over the wheat-fields wide, 10 And anchored lilies ride, And the pendulum spider Swings from side to side,

And blue-black beetles transact business, And gnats fly in a host, And furry caterpillars hasten That no time be lost, And moths grow fat and thrive, And ladybirds arrive.

Before green apples blush, 20 Before green nuts embrown, Why, one day in the country Is worth a month in town; Is worth a day and a year Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion That days drone elsewhere.

AUTUMN

I dwell alone--I dwell alone, alone, Whilst full my river flows down to the sea, Gilded with flashing boats That bring no friend to me: O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats, O love-pangs, let me be.

Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone And spices bear to sea: Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes, Love-promising, entreating-- 10 Ah! sweet, but fleeting-- Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails. Hush! the wind flags and fails-- Hush! they will lie becalmed in sight of strand-- Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone; Their songs wake singing echoes in my land-- They cannot hear me moan.

One latest, solitary swallow flies Across the sea, rough autumn-tempest tossed, Poor bird, shall it be lost? 20 Dropped down into this uncongenial sea, With no kind eyes To watch it while it dies, Unguessed, uncared for, free: Set free at last, The short pang past, In sleep, in death, in dreamless sleep locked fast.

Mine avenue is all a growth of oaks, Some rent by thunder strokes, Some rustling leaves and acorns in the breeze; 30 Fair fall my fertile trees, That rear their goodly heads, and live at ease.

A spider's web blocks all mine avenue; He catches down and foolish painted flies That spider wary and wise. Each morn it hangs a rainbow strung with dew Betwixt boughs green with sap, So fair, few creatures guess it is a trap: I will not mar the web, Though sad I am to see the small lives ebb. 40

It shakes--my trees shake--for a wind is roused In cavern where it housed: Each white and quivering sail, Of boats among the water leaves Hollows and strains in the full-throated gale: Each maiden sings again-- Each languid maiden, whom the calm Had lulled to sleep with rest and spice and balm Miles down my river to the sea They float and wane, 50 Long miles away from me.

Perhaps they say: 'She grieves, Uplifted, like a beacon, on her tower.' Perhaps they say: 'One hour More, and we dance among the golden sheaves.' Perhaps they say: 'One hour More, and we stand, Face to face, hand in hand; Make haste, O slack gale, to the looked-for land!'

My trees are not in flower, 60 I have no bower, And gusty creaks my tower, And lonesome, very lonesome, is my strand.

THE GHOST'S PETITION

'There's a footstep coming: look out and see,' 'The leaves are falling, the wind is calling; No one cometh across the lea.'--

'There's a footstep coming; O sister, look.'-- 'The ripple flashes, the white foam dashes; No one cometh across the brook.'--

'But he promised that he would come: To-night, to-morrow, in joy or sorrow, He must keep his word, and must come home.

'For he promised that he would come: 10 His word was given; from earth or heaven, He must keep his word, and must come home.

'Go to sleep, my sweet sister Jane; You can slumber, who need not number Hour after hour, in doubt and pain.

'I shall sit here awhile, and watch; Listening, hoping, for one hand groping In deep shadow to find the latch.'

After the dark, and before the light, One lay sleeping; and one sat weeping, 20 Who had watched and wept the weary night.