Part 2

Not on the river plains Wilt thou breathe loving air, O mountain spirit fine! Here the calm soul maintains Calm: but no joy like thine, On hill-tops bleak and bare, Whose breath is fierce and rare.

Were beauty all thy need, Here were an haunt for thee. The broad laborious weald, An eye's delight indeed, Spreads from rich field to field: And full streams wander free Under the alder tree.

Throw thee upon the grass, The daisied grass, and gaze Far to the warm blue mist: Feel, how the soft hours pass Over, before they wist, Into whole day: and days Dream on in sunny haze.

Each old, sweet, country scent Comes, as old music might Upon thee: old, sweet sounds Go, as they ever went, Over the red corn grounds: Still sweeping scythes delight Charmed hearing and charmed sight

Gentle thy life would be: To watch at morning dew Fresh water-lilies: tell, How bears the walnut tree: Find the first foxglove bell, Spare the last harebell blue: And wander the wold through.

Another love is thine: For thee the far world spied From the far mountain top: Keen scented, sounding pine, The purple heather crop: And night's great glorious tide Of stars and clouds allied.

1887.

GWYNEDD.

_To Ernest Rhys._

The children of the mingling mists: can they, Born by the melancholy hills, love thee, Royal and joyous light? From dawn of day, We watch the trailing shadows of the waste, The waste moors, or the ever-mourning sea: What, though in speedy splendour thou hast raced Over the heather or wild wave, a ray Of travelling glory and swift bloom? Still thou Inhabitest the mighty morning's brow: And hast thy flaming and celestial way, Afar from our sad beauties, in thine haste.

Have thou thy circling triumph of the skies, Horseman of Goldwhite Footsteps! Yet all fire Lives not with thee: for part is in our eyes, Beholding the loved beauty of cold hills: And part is patron of dear home desire, Flashing upon the central hearth: it fills Ingle and black-benched nook with radiances, Hearts with responding spirit, ears with deep Delicious music of the ruddy leap, And streaming strength, and kindling confluences: The hearth glows, and the cavernous chimney thrills,

Pale with great heat, panting to crimson gloom, Quiver the deeps of the rich fire: see there! Was not that your fair face, in burning bloom Wrought by the art of fire? O happy art! That sets in living flames a face so fair: The face, whose changes dominate mine heart, And with a look speak my delight or doom: Nay, now not doom, for I am only thine, And one in thee and me the fire divine! The fire, that wants the whole vast world for room: Yet dwells in us contented and apart.

The flames' red dance is done: and we crouch close With shadowy faces to the dull, red glow. Your darkling loveliness is like the rose, Its dusky petals, and its bower of soft Sweet inner darkness, where the dew lies low: And now one tongue of flame leaps up aloft, Brightening your brows: and now it fails, and throws A play of flushing shadows, the rich mist Of purple grapes, that many a sun hath kissed; The delicate darkness, that with autumn grows On red ripe apples in a mossy croft.

Nay! leave such idle southern imageries, Vineyard and orchard, flowers and mellow fruit: Great store is ours of mountain mysteries. Look, where the embers fade, from ruddy gold Into gray ashes falling without bruit! Yet is that ruddy lustre bought and sold, Elf with elf trafficking his merchandise: Deep at the strong foot of the eagles' pass, They store the haunting treasure, and amass The spirit of dead fire: there still it lies, Phantom wealth, goodlier than Ophir old.

Across the moor, over the purple bells, Over the heather blossom, the rain drives: Art fired enough to dare the blowing fells, And ford the brawling brooks? Ah, come we then! Great good it is to see, how beauty thrives For desolate moorland and for moorland men; To smell scents, rarer than soft honey cells, From bruised wild thyme, pine bark, or mouldering peat; To watch the crawling gray clouds drift, and meet Midway the ragged cliffs. O mountain spells, Calling us forth, by hill, and moor, and glen!

Calling us forth, to be with earth again, Her memories, her splendours, her desires! The fires of the hearth are fallen: now the rain Stirs its delight of waters, as the flame Stirred its delight of heat and spirited fires. Come! by the lintel listen: clouds proclaim, That thunder is their vast voice: the winds wane, That all the storm may gather strength, and strive Once more in their great breath to be alive; And fill the angry air with such a strain, As filled the world's war, when the world first came.

Desolate Cornwall, desolate Brittany, Are up in vehement wind and vehement wave: Ancient delights are on their ancient sea, And nature's violent graces waken there; And there goes loveliness about the grave, And death means dreaming, not life's long despair. Our sister lands are they, one people we, Cornwall desolate, Brittany desolate, And Wales: to us is granted to be great: Because, as winds and seas and flames are free, We too have freedom full, as wild and rare.

And therefore, on a night of heavenly fires; And therefore, on a windy hour of noon; Our soul, like nature's eager soul, aspires, Finding all thunders and all winds our friends: And like the moving sea, love we the moon; And life in us the way of nature wends, Ardent as nature's own, that never tires. Born of wild land, children of mountains, we Fear neither ruining earth, nor stormy sea: Even as men told in Athens, of our sires: And as it shall be, till the old world ends.

Your eyes but brighten to the streaming wind, But lighten to the sighing air, but break To tears before the labouring hills: your mind Moves with the passionate spirit of the land. Now crystal is your soul, now flame: a lake, Proud and calm, with high scaurs on either hand; Or a swift lance of lightning, to strike blind. True child of Gwynedd, child of wilds and fields! To you earth clings, to you strange nature yields Far learning, sudden light, fierce fire: these find Home in your heart, and thoughts that understand.

We will not wander from this land; we will Be wise together, and accept our world: This world of the gray cottage by the hill, This gorge, this lusty air, this loneliness: The calm of drifting clouds; the pine-tops whirled And swayed along the ridges. Here distress Dreams, and delight dreams: dreaming, we can fill All solitary haunts with prophecy, All heights with holiness and mystery; Our hearts with understanding, and our will With love of nature's law and loveliness.

Old voices call, old pleasures lure: for now The wet earth breathes ancient fair fragrance forth; And dying gales hang in the branches, blow And fall, and blow again: our widest home Is with rich winds of West, loud winds of North, Sweeping beneath a gray and vasty dome. Not with the hearth, whose consolations go, Our home of homes: but where our eyes grown tired Of straitened joys, with stretching joys are fired: Joys of the rolling moor and cloudy brow, Or worn, precipitous bastions of the foam.

Our fires are fallen from their blossoming height, And linger in sad embers: but gray bloom Is on the heather, an enchaunting light Of purple dusk and vesper air: rich rain Falls on our hearts, through eve and gentle gloom, More than upon our foreheads. The world's pain And joy of storm are proven our delight, And peace enthroned for ever: ours the mirth, And melancholy of this ancient earth: Ours are the mild airs and the starred twilight; And we, who love them, are not all in vain.

1888

A CORNISH NIGHT.

_To William Butler Yeats._

Merry the night, you riders of the wild! A merry night to ride your wilderness. Come you from visionary haunts, enisled Amid the northern waters pitiless, Over these cliffs white-heathered? Upon mild Midnights of dewy June, oh, rare to press Past moonlit fields of white bean-flowers! nor less To wander beside falling waves, beguiled By soft winds into still dreams! Yet confess, You chivalries of air, unreconciled To the warm, breathing world! what ghostly stress Compels your visit unto sorrow's child?

What would you here? For here you have no part: Only the sad voices of wind and sea Are prophets here to any wistful heart: Or white flowers found upon a glimmering lea. What would you here? Sweep onward, and depart Over the ocean into Brittany, Where old faith is, and older mystery! Though this be western land, we have no art To welcome spirits in community: Trafficking, in an high celestial mart, Slumber for wondrous knowledge: setting free Our souls, that strain and agonize and start.

The wind hath cried to me, all the long day, That you were coming, chivalries of air! Between the waters and the starry way. Fair lies the sea about a land, as fair: Moonlight and west winds move upon the bay Gently: now down the rough path sweet it were To clamber, and so launching out to fare Forth for the heart of sea and night, away From hard earth's loud uproar, and harder care! But you at will about the winds can stray: Or bid the wandering stars of midnight bear You company: or with the seven stay.

And yet you came for me! So the wind cried, So my soul knows: else why am I awake With expectation and desire, beside The soothed sea's murmuring nocturnal lake? Not sleep, but storm, welcomes a widowed bride: Storms of sad certainty, vain want, that make Vigil perpetual mine; so that I take The gusty night in place of him, who died, To clasp me home to heart. That cannot break, The eternal heart of nature far and wide! So now, your message! while the clear stars shake Within the gleaming sea, shake and abide.

So now, your message! Breathe words from the wave, Or breathe words from the field, into mine ears: Or from the sleeping shades of a cold grave Bring comfortable solace for my tears. Something of my love's heart could nature save: Some rich delight to spice the tasteless years, Some hope to light the valley of lone fears. Hear! I am left alone, to bear and brave The sounding storms: but you, from starry spheres, From wild wood haunts, give me, as love once gave Joy from his home celestial, so, love's peers! Give peace awhile to me, sorrow's poor slave!

In sorrow's order I dwell passionist, Cloistered by tossing sea on weary land. O vain love! vain, to claim me votarist: O vain my heart! that will not understand, _He is dead! I am lonely!_ Love in a Mist My flower is: and salt tangle of the strand, The crownals woven by this failing hand: In the dark kingdom, walking where I list, I walk where Lethe glides against the sand. But vain love is a constant lutanist, Playing old airs, and able to withstand Sweet sleep: vain love, thou loyal melodist!

You wanderers! Would I were wandering Under the white moon with you, or among The invisible stars with you! Would I might sing Over the charmed sea your enchaunting song, Song of old autumn, and of radiant spring: Might sing, how earth the mother suffers long; How the great winds are wild, yet do no wrong; How the most frail bloom is at heart a king! I could endure then, strenuous and strong: But now, O spirits of the air! I bring Before you my waste soul: why will you throng About me, save to take even such a thing?

Only for this you ride the midnight gloom, Above the ancient isles of the old main. The spray leaps on the hidden rocks of doom: The ripples break, and wail away again Upon the gathering wave: gaunt headlands loom In the lone distance of the heaving plain. And now, until the calm, the still stars wane, You wait upon my heart, my heart a tomb. Though I dream, life and dreams are alike vain! Then love me, tell me news of dear death: whom Circle you, but a soul astray, one fain To leave this close world for death's larger room?

If barren be the promise I desire, The promise that I shall not always go In living solitariness: break fire Out of the night, and lay me swiftly low! Soft spirits! you have wings to waft me higher, Than touch of each my most familiar woe: Am I unworthy, you should raise me so? If barren be that trust, my dreams inspire Only despair; my brooding heart must grow Heavy with miseries; a mourning quire, To tell the heavy hours, how sad, how slow, Are all their footsteps, of whose sound I tire.

Bright seafire runs about a plunging keel On vehement nights: and where black danger lies, Gleam the torn breakers. But all days reveal Drear dooms for me, nor any nights disguise Their menace: never rolls the thunder peal Through my worn watch, nor lightning past mine eyes Leaps from the blue gloom of its mother skies, One hour alone, but all, while sad stars wheel. This hour, was it a lie, that bade me rise; Some laughing dream, that whispered me to steal Into the sea-sweet night, where the wind cries, And find the comfort, that I cannot feel?

My lord hath gone your way perpetual: Whether you be great spirits of the dead, Or spirits you, that never were in thrall To perishing bodies, dust-born, dustward led. Sweet shadows! passing by this ocean wall, Tarry to pour some balm upon mine head, Some pity for a woman, who hath wed With weariness and loneliness, from fall To fall, from bitter snows to maybloom red: The hayfields hear, the cornlands hear, my call! From weariness toward weariness I tread; And hunger for the end: the end of all.

1888

MYSTIC AND CAVALIER.

_To Herbert Percy Horne._

Go from me: I am one of those, who fall. What! hath no cold wind swept your heart at all, In my sad company? Before the end, Go from me, dear my friend!

Yours are the victories of light: your feet Rest from good toil, where rest is brave and sweet. But after warfare in a mourning gloom, I rest in clouds of doom.

Have you not read so, looking in these eyes? Is it the common light of the pure skies, Lights up their shadowy depths? The end is set: Though the end be not yet.

When gracious music stirs, and all is bright, And beauty triumphs through a courtly night; When I too joy, a man like other men: Yet, am I like them, then?

And in the battle, when the horsemen sweep Against a thousand deaths, and fall on sleep: Who ever sought that sudden calm, if I Sought not? Yet, could not die.

Seek with thine eyes to pierce this crystal sphere: Canst read a fate there, prosperous and clear? Only the mists, only the weeping clouds: Dimness, and airy shrouds.

Beneath, what angels are at work? What powers Prepare the secret of the fatal hours? See! the mists tremble, and the clouds are stirred: When comes the calling word?

The clouds are breaking from the crystal ball, Breaking and clearing: and I look to fall. When the cold winds and airs of portent sweep, My spirit may have sleep.

O rich and sounding voices of the air! Interpreters and prophets of despair: Priests of a fearful sacrament! I come, To make with you mine home.

1889

PARNELL.

_To John McGrath._

The wail of Irish winds, The cry of Irish seas: Eternal sorrow finds Eternal voice in these.

I cannot praise our dead, Whom Ireland weeps so well: Her morning light, that fled; Her morning star, that fell.

She of the mournful eyes Waits, and no dark clouds break: Waits, and her strong son lies Dead, for her holy sake.

Her heart is sorrow's home. And hath been from of old: An host of griefs hath come, To make that heart their fold.

Ah, the sad autumn day, When the last sad troop came Swift down the ancient way, Keening a chieftain's name!

Gray hope was there, and dread; Anger, and love in tears: They mourned the dear and dead, Dirge of the ruined years.

Home to her heart she drew The mourning company: Old sorrows met the new, In sad fraternity.

A mother, and forget? Nay! all her children's fate Ireland remembers yet, With love insatiate.

She hears the heavy bells: Hears, and with passionate breath Eternally she tells A rosary of death.

Faithful and true is she, The mother of us all: Faithful and true! may we Fail her not, though we fall.

Her son, our brother, lies Dead, for her holy sake: But from the dead arise Voices, that bid us wake.

Not his, to hail the dawn: His but the herald's part. Be ours to see withdrawn Night from our mother's heart.

1893.

IN ENGLAND.

_To Charles Furse._

Bright Hellas lies far hence, Far the Sicilian sea: But England's excellence Is fair enough for me.

I love and understand One joy: with staff and scrip To walk a wild west land, The winds my fellowship.

For all the winds will blow, Across a lonely face, Rough wisdom, good to know: An high and heartening grace.

Wind, on the open down! Riding the wind, the moon: From town to country town, I go from noon to noon.

Cities of ancient spires, Glorious against high noon; August at sunset fires; Austere beneath the moon.

Old, rain-washed, red-roofed streets, Fresh with the soft South-west: Where dreaming memory meets Brave men long since at rest.

Evening, from out the green Wet boughs of clustered lime. Pours fragrance rich and keen, Balming the stilly time.

Old ramparts, gray and stern; But comely clothed upon With wealth of moss and fern, And scarlet snapdragon.

Harbours of swaying masts, Beneath the vesper star: Each high-swung lantern casts A quivering ray afar.

From round the ancient quay, Ring songs with rough refrains: Strong music of the sea, Chaunted in lusty strains.

Freshness of early spray, Blown on me off the sea: Morning breaks chilly gray, And storm is like to be.

A cliff of rent, black rock, About whose stern height flies The wrangling sea-gull flock, With querulous, thin cries.

The sea-gulls' wrangling cry Around the black cliff rings: I watch them wheel and fly, A snowstorm of white wings.

With savoury blossoms graced, A craggy, rusted height: Where thrift and samphire taste The sea and wind and light.

A light prow plunges: red, Red as the ruddy sand, The tall sail fills: well sped, The fair boat leaves the land.

I wander with delight Among the great sea gales: Exulting in their might, They thunder through the vales.

Cries of the North-west wind, Crying from roseless lands: From countries cold and blind, Hard seas and unsunned strands.

A dark forest, where freeze My very dreams: gaunt rows Rise up, the forest trees; Black, from a waste of snows.

Long, fragrant pine tree bands, Behind whose black, straight ranks The dusky red sun stands, On clouds in purple banks.

In tree-tops the worn gale Hangs, weakened to a sigh: The rooks with sunrise hail From out the tree-tops fly.

A deep wood, where the air Hangs in a stilly trance: While on rich fernbanks fair The sunlights flash and dance.

I hear the woodland folks, Each well-swung axe's blow: And boughs of mighty oaks, Murmuring to and fro.

My step fills, as I go, Shy rabbits with quick fears: I see the sunlight glow Red through their startled ears.

Mild, red-brown April woods. When spring is in the air: And a soft spirit broods In patience, everywhere.

Primroses fill the fields, And birds' light matin cries: The lingering darkness yields, Before the sun's uprise.

Deep meadows, white with dew, Where faeries well may dance; Or the quaint fawnskin crew, Play in a red moon's glance.

Quivering poplar trees, Silvered upon the wind: In watermeads and leas, With silver streams entwined.

Waters in alder shade, Where green lights break and gleam Betwixt my fingers, laid Upon the rippling stream.

In merry prime of June, Birds sun themselves and sing: Mine heart beats to the tune; The world is on the wing.

The sun, golden and strong, Leaps: and in flying choirs The birds make morning song, Across the morning fires.

Old gardens, where long hours But find me happier, Beside the misty flowers Of purple lavender.

Heaped with a sweet hay load, Curved, yellow waggons pass Slow down the high-hedged road; I watch them from the grass:

A pleasant village noise Breaks the still air: and all The summer spirit joys, Before the first leaves fall.

Red wreckage of the rose, Over a gusty lawn: While in the orchard close, Fruits redden to their dawn.

September's wintering air, When fruits and flowers have fled From mountain valleys bare, Save rowan berries red.

These joys, and such as these, Are England's and are mine: Within the English seas, My days have been divine.

Oh! Hellas lies far hence, Far the blue Sicel sea: But England's excellence Is more than they to me.

1892.

TO OCEAN HAZARD: GIPSY.

Burning fire, or blowing wind; Starry night, or glowing sun: All these thou dost bring to mind, All these match thee, one by one: Ocean is thy name, most fair! Strangest name, for thee to bear.

Daughter of the sun, and child Of the wind upon the waste; Daughter of the field and wild: Thee, what oceans have embraced? What great waves have cradled thee, That thy name is of the sea?

In thy beauty, the red earth, Full of gold and jewel stone, Flames and burns: thy happy birth Made and marked thee for her own. Winds held triumph in the trees: Thou wast lying on earth's knees.

For thine ancient people keep Still their march from land to land: Ever upon earth they sleep, Woods and fields on either hand. Not upon the barren sea Have thy people dandled thee.

Closer they, than other men, To the heart of earth have come: First the wilderness, and then Field and forest, gave them home: All their days, their hearts, they must Give to earth: and then their dust.

Was it, that they heard the sea In the surging pinewood's voice: As they pondered names, for thee Fair enough; so made their choice, Hailed thee Ocean, hailed thee queen Over glades of tossing green?

1888

UPON A DRAWING.

_To Manmohan Ghose._

Not in the crystal air of a Greek glen, Not in the houses of imperial Rome, Lived he, who wore this beauty among men: No classic city was his ancient home. What happy country claims his fair youth then, Her pride? and what his fortunate lineage? Here is no common man of every day, This man, whose full and gleaming eyes assuage Never their longing, be that what it may: Of dreamland only he is citizen, Beyond the flying of the last sea's foam.

Set him beneath the Athenian olive trees, To speak with Marathonians: or to task The wise serenity of Socrates; Asking, what other men dare never ask. Love of his country and his gods? Not these The master thoughts, that comfort his strange heart, When life grows difficult, and the lights dim: In him is no simplicity, but art Is all in all, for life and death, to him: And whoso looks upon that fair face, sees No nature there: only a magic mask.