Part 2

Sleep well: for I can follow you, to bless And lull your distant beauty where you roam; And with wild songs of hoarded loveliness Recall you to these arms that were your home.

SLUMBER-SONG

Sleep; and my song shall build about your bed A Paradise of dimness. You shall feel The folding of tired wings; and peace will dwell Throned in your silence: and one hour shall hold Summer, and midnight, and immensity Lulled to forgetfulness. For, where you dream, The stately gloom of foliage shall embower Your slumbering thought with tapestries of blue. And there shall be no memory of the sky, Nor sunlight with its cruelty of swords. But, to your soul that sinks from deep to deep Through drowned and glimmering colour, Time shall be Only slow rhythmic swaying; and your breath; And roses in the darkness; and my love.

THE IMPERFECT LOVER

I never asked you to be perfect--did I?-- Though often I've called you sweet, in the invasion Of mastering love. I never prayed that you Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman, Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post.

Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. We found the little kingdom of our passion That all can share who walk the road of lovers. In wild and secret happiness we stumbled; And gods and demons clamoured in our senses.

But I've grown thoughtful now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At being so utterly mine: you've learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my soul, And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.

You made me glad; and I can still return To you, the haven of my lonely pride: But I am sworn to murder those illusions That blossom from desire with desperate beauty: And there shall be no falsehood in our failure; Since, if we loved like beasts, the thing is done, And I'll not hide it, though our heaven be hell.

You dream long liturgies of our devotion. Yet, in my heart, I dread our love's destruction. But, should you grow to hate me, I would ask No mercy of your mood: I'd have you stand And look me in the eyes, and laugh, and smite me.

Then I should know, at least, that truth endured, Though love had died of wounds. And you could leave me Unvanquished in my atmosphere of devils.

VISION

I love all things that pass: their briefness is Music that fades on transient silences. Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall-- They fling delight across the world; they call To rhythmic-flashing limbs that rove and race... A moment in the dawn for Youth's lit face; A moment's passion, closing on the cry-- 'O Beauty, born of lovely things that die!'

TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN

You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do ... I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you. I wonder if you'd loathe my pity, if you knew.

But you _shall_ know. I've carried in my heart too long This secret burden. Has not silence wrought _your_ wrong-- Brought you to dumb and wintry middle-age, with grey Unfruitful withering?--Ah, the pitiless things I say...

What do you ask your God for, at the end of day, Kneeling beside your bed with bowed and hopeless head? What mercy can He give you?--Dreams of the unborn Children that haunt your soul like loving words unsaid-- Dreams, as a song half-heard through sleep in early morn?

I see you in the chapel, where you bend before The enhaloed calm of everlasting Motherhood That wounds your life; I see you humbled to adore The painted miracle you've never understood. Tender, and bitter-sweet, and shy, I've watched you holding Another's child. O childless woman, was it then That, with an instant's cry, your heart, made young again, Was crucified for ever--those poor arms enfolding The life, the consummation that had been denied you? I too have longed for children. Ah, but you must not weep. Something I have to whisper as I kneel beside you... And you must pray for me before you fall asleep.

AFTERMATH

_Have you forgotten yet?_ ... For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city-ways: And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. _But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game... Have you forgotten yet? ... Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget._

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz-- The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? Do you remember the rats; and the stench Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench-- And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain? Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack-- And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

_Have you forgotten yet? ... Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget._

_March, 1919_.

FALLING ASLEEP

Voices moving about in the quiet house: Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: Everyone yawning ... only the clocks are alert.

Out in the night there's autumn-smelling gloom Crowded with whispering trees,--looming of oaks That roared in wild wet gales: across the park The hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon, The low, red, rising moon. The herons call And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls Sail from the wood across pale stocks of wheat.

Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these; And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams. Music ... there was a bright white room below, And someone singing a song about a soldier,-- One hour, two hours ago; and soon the song Will be 'last night': but now the beauty swings Across my brain, ghost of remember'd chords Which still can make such radiance in my dream That I can watch the marching of my soldiers, And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces.

Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds... September in the darkness; and the world I've known; all fading past me into peace.

PRELUDE TO AN UNWRITTEN MASTERPIECE

You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers; Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns; And Youth against the sun-rise ... '_Not profound;_ '_But such a haunting music in the sound:_ '_Do it once more; it helps us to forget._'

Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene-- Some complex out of childhood; (sex, of course!) I can't remember how the trouble starts; And then I'm running blindly in the sun Down the old orchard, and there's something cruel Chasing me; someone roused to a grim pursuit Of clumsy anger ... Crash! I'm through the fence And thrusting wildly down the wood that's dense With woven green of safety; paths that wind Moss-grown from glade to glade; and far behind, One thwarted yell; then silence. I've escaped.

That's where it used to stop. Last night I went Onward until the trees were dark and huge, And I was lost, cut off from all return By swamps and birdless jungles. I'd no chance Of getting home for tea. I woke with shivers, And thought of crocodiles in crawling rivers.

Some day I'll build (more ruggedly than Doughty) A dark tremendous song you'll never hear. My beard will be a snow-storm, drifting whiter On bowed, prophetic shoulders, year by year. And some will say, 'His work has grown so dreary.' Others, 'He used to be a charming writer.' And you, my friend, will query-- 'Why can't you cut it short, you pompous blighter?'

LIMITATIONS

If you could crowd them into forty lines! Yes; you can do it, once you get a start: All that you want is waiting in your head, For long-ago you've learnt it off by heart.

* * * * * * *

Begin: your mind's the room where you must sleep, (Don't pause for rhymes), till twilight wakes you early. The window stands wide-open, as it stood When tree-tops loomed enchanted for a child Hearing the dawn's first thrushes through the wood Warbling (you know the words) serene and wild.

You've said it all before: you dreamed of Death, A dim Apollo in the bird-voiced breeze That drifts across the morning veiled with showers, While golden weather shines among dark trees.

You've got your limitations; let them sing, And all your life will waken with a cry: Why should you halt when rapture's on the wing And you've no limit but the cloud-flocked sky?...

But some chap shouts, 'Here, stop it; that's been done!'-- As God might holloa to the rising sun, And then relent, because the glorying rays Reminded Him of glinting Eden days, And Adam's trustful eyes as he looks up From carving eagles on his beechwood cup.

Young Adam knew his job; he could condense Life to an eagle from the unknown immense ... Go on, whoever you are; your lines can be A whisper in the music from the weirs Of song that plunge and tumble toward the sea That is the uncharted mercy of our tears.

* * * * * * *

I told you it was easy: words are fools Who follow blindly, once they get a lead. But thoughts are kingfishers that haunt the pools Of quiet; seldom-seen; and all you need Is just that flash of joy above your dream. So, when those forty platitudes are done, You'll hear a bird-note calling from the stream That wandered through your childhood; and the sun Will strike the old flaming wonder from the waters ... And there'll be forty lines not yet begun.

EVERYONE SANG

Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.