Chapter 4

THE EVENING SKY

Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd With eyes of dazzling bright Shakes Venus mid the twinèd boughs of the night; Rose-limb'd, soft-stepping From low bough to bough Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage--dimmed Its bloom of snow By that sole planetary glow.

Venus, avers the astronomer, Not thus idly dancing goes Flushing the eternal orchard with wild rose. She through ether burns Outpacing planetary earth, And ere two years triumphantly returns, And again wave-like swelling flows, And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.

This we have not seen, No heavenly courses set, No flight unpausing through a void serene: But when eve clears, Arises Venus as she first uprose Stepping the shaken boughs among, And in her bosom glows The warm light hidden in sunny snows.

She shakes the clustered stars Lightly, as she goes Amid the unseen branches of the night, Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright. She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows-- And who but knows How the rejoiced heart aches When Venus all his starry vision shakes;

When through his mind Tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind, Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd, The mistress of his starry vision arises, And the boughs glittering sway And the stars pale away, And the enlarging heaven glows As Venus light-foot mid the twinèd branches goes.

BEECHWOOD

Hear me, O beeches! You That have with ageless anguish slowly risen From earth's still secret prison Into the ampler prison of aery blue. Your voice I hear, flowing the valleys through After the wind that tramples from the west. After the wind your boughs in new unrest Shake, and your voice--one voice uniting voices A thousand or a thousand thousand--flows Like the wind's moody; glad when he rejoices In swift-succeeding and diminishing blows, And drooping when declines death's ardour in his breast; Then over him exhausted weaving the soft fan-like noises Of gentlest creaking stems and soothing leaves Until he rest, And silent too your easied bosom heaves.

That high and noble wind is rootless nor From stable earth sucks nurture, but roams on Childless as fatherless, wild, unconfined, So that men say, "As homeless as the wind!" Rising and falling and rising evermore With years like ticks, æons as centuries gone; Only within impalpable ether bound And blindly with the green globe spinning round. He, noble wind, Most ancient creature of imprisoned Time, From high to low may fall, and low to high may climb, Andean peak to deep-caved southern sea, With lifted hand and voice of gathered sound, And echoes in his tossing quiver bound And loosed from height into immensity; Yet of his freedom tires, remaining free. --Moulding and remoulding imponderable cloud, Uplifting skiey archipelagian isles Sunnier than ocean's, blue seas and white isles Aflush with blossom where late sunlight glowed;-- Still of his freedom tiring yet still free, Homelessly roaming between sky, earth and sea.

But you, O beeches, even as men, have root Deep in apparent and substantial things-- Earth, sun, air, water, and the chemic fruit Wise Time of these has made. What laughing Springs Your branches sprinkle young leaf-shadows o'er That wanting the leaf-shadows were no Springs Of seasonable sweet and freshness! nor If Summer of your murmur gathered not Increase of music as your leaves grow dense, Might even kine and birds and general noise of wings Of summer make full Summer, but the hot Slow moons would pass and leave unsatisfied the sense. Nor Autumn's waste were dear if your gold snow Of leaves whirled not upon the gold below; Nor Winter's snow were loveliness complete Wanting the white drifts round your breasts and feet. To hills how many has your tossed green given Likeness of an inverted cloudy heaven; How many English hills enlarge their pride Of shape and solitude By beechwoods darkening the steepest side! I know a Mount--let there my longing brood Again, as oft my eyes--a Mount I know Where beeches stand arrested in the throe Of that last onslaught when the gods swept low Against the gods inhabiting the wood. Gods into trees did pass and disappear, Then closing, body and huge members heaved With energy and agony and fear. See how the thighs were strained, how tortured here. See, limb from limb sprung, pain too sore to bear. Eyes once looked from those sockets that no eyes Have worn since--oh, with what desperate surprise! These arms, uplifted still, were raised in vain Against alien triumph and the inward pain. Unlock your arms, and be no more distressed, Let the wind glide over you easily again. It is a dream you fight, a memory Of battle lost. And how should dreaming be Still a renewed agony? But O, when that wind comes up out of the west New-winged with Autumn from the distant sea And springs upon you, how should not dreaming be A remembered and renewing agony? Then are your breasts, O unleaved beeches, again Torn, and your thighs and arms with the old strain Stretched past endurance; and your groans I hear Low bent beneath the hoofs by that fierce charioteer Driven clashing over; till even dreaming is Less of a present agony than this.

Fall gentler sleep upon you now, while soft Airs circle swallow-like from hedge to croft Below your lowest naked-rooted troop. Let evening slowly droop Into the middle of your boughs and stoop Quiet breathing down to your scarce-quivering side And rest there satisfied.

Yet sleep herself may wake And through your heavy unlit dome, O Mount of beeches, shake. Then shall your massy columns yield Again the company all day concealed.... Is it their shapes that sweep Serene within the ambit of the Moon Sentinel'd by shades slow-marching with moss-footed hours that creep From dusk of night to dusk of day--slow-marching, yet too soon Approaching morn? Are these their grave Remembering ghosts? ... Already your full-foliaged branches wave, And the thin failing hosts Into your secrecies are swift withdrawn Before the certain footsteps of the dawn.

But you, O beeches, even as men have root Deep in apparent and substantial things. Birds on your branches leap and shake their wings, Long ere night falls the soft owl loosens her slow hoot From the unfathomed fountains of your gloom. Late western sunbeams on your broad trunks bloom, Levelled from the low opposing hill, and fold Your inmost conclave with a burning gold. ... Than those night-ghosts awhile more solid, men Pass within your sharp shade that makes an arctic night Of common light, And pause, swift measuring tree by tree; and then Paint their vivid mark, Ciphering fatality on each unwrinkled bark Across the sunken stain That every season's gathered streaming rain Has deepened to a darker grain. You of this fatal sign unconscious lift Your branches still, each tree her lofty tent; Still light and twilight drift Between, and lie in wan pools silver sprent. But comes a day, a step, a voice, and now The repeated stroke, the noosed and tethered bough, The sundered trunk upon the enormous wain Bound kinglike with chain over chain, New wounded and exposed with each old stain. And here small pools of doubtful light are lakes Shadowless and no more that rude bough-music wakes.

So on men too the indifferent woodman, Time, Servant of unseen Master, nearing sets His unread symbol--or who reads forgets; And suns and seasons fall and climb, Leaves fall, snows fall, Spring flutters after Spring, A generation a generation begets. But comes a day--though dearly the tough roots cling To common earth, branches with branches sing-- And that obscure sign's read, or swift misread, By the indifferent woodman or his slave Disease, night-wandered from a fever-dripping cave. No chain's then needed for no fearful king, But light earth-fall on foot and hand and head.

Now thick as stars leaves shake within the dome Of faintly-glinting dusking monochrome; And stars thick hung as leaves shake unseen in the round Of darkening blue: the heavenly branches wave without a sound, Only betrayed by fine vibration of thin air. Gleam now the nearer stars and ghosts of farther stars that bare, Trembling and gradual, brightness everywhere.... When leaves fall wildly and your beechen dome is thinned, Showered glittering down under the sudden wind; And when you, crowded stars, are shaken from your tree In time's late season stripped, and each bough nakedly Rocks in those gleamless shallows of infinity; When star-fall follows leaf-fall, will long Winter pass away And new stars as new leaves dance through their hasty May? --But as a leaf falls so falls weightless thought Eddying, and with a myriad dead leaves lies Bewildered, or in a little air awhile is caught Idly, then drops and dies.

Look at the stars, the stars! But in this wood All I can understand is understood. Gentler than stars your beeches speak; I hear Syllables more simple and intimately clear To earth-taught sense, than the heaven-singing word Of that intemperate wisdom which the sky Shakes down upon each unregarding century, There lying like snow unstirred, Unmelting, on the loftiest peak Above our human and green valley ways. Lowlier and friendlier your beechen branches speak To men of mortal days With hearts too fond, too weak For solitude or converse with that starry race. Their shaken lights, Their lonely splendours and uncomprehended Dream-distance and long circlings 'mid the heights And deeps remotely neighboured and attended By spheres that spill their fire through these estranging nights:-- Ah, were they less dismaying, or less splendid! But as one deaf and mute sees the lips shape And quiver as men talk, or marks the throat Of rising song that he can never hear, Though in the singer's eyes her joy may dimly peer, And song and word his hopeless sense escape-- Sweet common word and lifted heavenly note-- So, beneath that bright rain, While stars rise, soar and stoop, Dazzled and dismayed I look and droop And, blinded, look again.

"Return, return!" O beeches sing you then. I like a tree wave all my thoughts with you, As your boughs wave to other tossed boughs when First in the windy east the dawn looks through Night's soon-dissolving bars. Return, return? But I have never strayed: Hush, thoughts, that for a moment played In that enchanted forest of the stars Where the mind grows numb. Return, return? Back, thoughts, from heights that freeze and deeps that burn, Where sight fails and song's dumb. And as, after long absence, a child stands In each familiar room And with fond hands Touches the table, casement, bed, Anon each sleeping, half-forgotten toy; So I to your sharp light and friendly gloom Returning, with first pale leaves round me shed, Recover the old joy Since here the long-acquainted hill-path lies, Steeps I have clambered up, and spaces where The Mount opens her bosom to the air And all around gigantic beeches rise.

THY HILL LEAVE NOT

Thy hill leave not, O Spring, Nor longer leap down to the new-green'd Plain. Thy western cliff-caves keep O Wind, nor branch-borne Echo after thee complain With grumbling wild and deep. Let Blossom cling Sudden and frozen round the eyes of trees, Nor fall, nor fall. Be still each Wing, Hushed each call.

So was it ordered, so Hung all things silent, still; Only Time earless moved on, stepping slow Up the scarped hill, And even Time in a long twilight stayed And, for a whim, that whispered whim obeyed.

There was no breath, no sigh, No wind lost in the sky Roamed the horizon round. The harsh dead leaf slept noiseless on the ground, By unseen mouse nor insect stirred Nor beak of hungry bird.

Then were voices heard Mingling as though each Earth and grass had individual speech. --Has evening fallen so soon, And yet no Moon? --No, but hark: so still Was never the Spring's voice adown the hill! I do not feel her waters tapping upon The culvert's under stone. --And if 'tis not yet night a thrush should sing. --Or if 'tis night the owl should his far echo bring Near, near.--And I Should know the hour by his long-shaking distant cry. --But how should echo be? The air is dead, No song, no wing, --No footfall overhead Of beast,--Or labourer passing, and no sound Of labourer's Good-night, good-night, good-night! --That we, here underground, Take to ourselves and breathe unheard Good-night! --O, it is lonely now with not one sound Neath that arched profound, --No throttled note Sweet over us to float, --No shadow treading light Of man, beast, bird. --If, earth in dumb earth, lie we here unstirred, --Why, brother, it were death renewed again If sun nor rain, --O death undying, if no dear human touch nor sound Fall on us underground!

THE CAVES

Like the tide--knocking at the hollowed cliff And running into each green cave as if In the cave's night to keep Eternal motion grave and deep;--

That, even while each broken wave repeats Its answered knocking and with bruised hand beats Again, again, again, Tossed between ecstasy and pain;

Still in the folded hollow darkness swells, Sinks, swells, and every green-hung hollow fills, Till there's no room for sound Save that old anger rolled around;

So into every hollow cliff of life, Into this heart's deep cave so loud with strife, In tunnels I knew not, In lightless labyrinths of thought,

The unresting tide has run and the dark filled, Even the vibration of old strife is stilled; The wave returning bears Muted those time-breathing airs.

--How shall the million-footed tide still tread These hollows and in each cold void cave spread? How shall Love here keep Eternal motion grave and deep?

I WILL ASK

I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you Their smell and hue, And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare Her flowers starry fair; Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn Their sweetness to keep Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born Between midnight and midnight deep.

And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white In its own green light, Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadowsweet Lifting at your feet, And ivy blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take The loveliest-- The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake Though the winds are at rest.

"For me?" you will ask. "Yes! surely they wave for you Their smell and hue, And you away all that is rare were so much less By your missed happiness." Yet I know grass and weed, ivy and apple and thorn Their whole sweet would keep Though in Eden no human spirit on a shining morn Had awaked from sleep.

IN THOSE OLD DAYS

In those old days you were called beautiful, But I have worn the beauty from your face; The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on Beauty and the remembrance of things gone. Even your voice is altered when you speak, Or is grown mute with old anxiety For me.

Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight, And then under the flame a glowing dome Deepens slowly into blood-like light:-- So did you flame and in flame take delight, So are you hollow'd now with aching fire. But I still warm me and make there my home, Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly For me.

Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull, My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks, Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught, Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours: Now love undying feeds on love beautiful, Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought ... --And can it be in your heart's music speaks A deeper rhythm hearing mine: can it be Indeed for me?

THE ASH

The undecaying yew has shed his flowers Long since in golden showers. The elm has robed her height In green, and hangs maternal o'er the bright Starred meadows, and her full-contented breast Lifts and sinks to rest. Shades drowsing in the grass Beneath the hedge move but as the hours pass. Beech, oak and beam have all put beauty on In the eye of the sun. Because the hawthorn's sweet All the earth is sweet and the air, and the wind's feet. In the wood's green hollows the earth is sweet and wet, For scarce one shaft may get The sudden green between: Only that warm sweet creeps between the green; Or in the clearing the bluebells lifting high Make another azure sky.

All's leaf and flower except The sluggish ash that all night long has slept, And all the morning of this lingering spring. Every tree else may sing, Every bough laugh and shake; But the ash like an old man does not wake Even though draws near the season's poise and noon Of heavy-poppied swoon ... Still the ash is asleep, Or from his lower upraised palms now creep First green leaves, promising that even those gaunt Tossed boughs shall be the haunt Of Autumn starlings shrill Mid his full-leaved high branches never still.

If to any tree, 'Tis to the ash that I might likened be-- Masculine, unamenable, delaying, With palms uplifted praying For another life and Spring Yet unforeshadowed; but content to swing Stiff branches chill and bare In this fine-quivering air That others' love makes sweetness everywhere.

IMAGINATION

To make a fairer, A kinder, a more constant world than this; To make time longer And love a little stronger,

To give to blossoms And trees and fruits more beauty than they bear, Adding to sweetness The aye-wanted completeness,

To say to sorrow, "Ease now thy bosom of its snaky burden"; (And sorrow brightened, No more stung and frightened),

To cry to death, "Stay a little, O proud Shade, thy stony hand"; (And death removing Left us amazed loving);--

For this and this, O inward Spirit, arm thyself with power; Be it thy duty To give a body to beauty.

Thine to remake The world in thy hid likeness, and renew The fading vision In spite of time's derision.

Be it thine, O spirit, The world of sense and thought to exalt with light; Purge away blindness, Terror and all unkindness.

Shine, shine From within, on the confused grey world without That, growing clearer, Grows spiritual and dearer.

NO MORE ADIEU

Unconscious on thy lap I lay, A spiritual thing, Stirless until the yet unlooked-for day Of human birth Should call me from thy starry twilight, Earth. And did thy bosom rock and clear voice sing? I know not--now no more a spiritual thing. Nor then thy breathed Adieu I rightly knew.

--Until those human kind arms caught And nursed my head Upon her breast who from the twilight brought This stranger me. Mother, it were yet happiness to be Within your arms; but now that you are dead Your memory sleeps in mine; so mine is comforted, Though I breathed dear Adieu Unheard by you.

And I have gathered to my breast Wife, mistress, child, Affections insecure but tenderest Of all that clutch Man's heart with their "Too little!" and "Too much!" O, what anxieties, what passions wild Bind and unbind me, what storms never to be stilled Until Adieu, Adieu Breathe the night through.

O, when all last farewells are said To these most dear; O, when within my purged heart peace is shed; When these old sweet Humanities move out on hushing feet, And all is hush; then in that silence clear Who is it comes again--near and near and near, Even while the sighed Adieu Fades the hush through?

O, is it on thy breast I fall, A spiritual thing Once more, and hear with ear insensual The voice of primal Earth Breathed gently as on Eden faint airs forth; And so contented to thy bosom cling, Though all those loves are gone nor faithful echoes ring, Nor fond Adieu, Adieu My parted spirit pursue?

--So hidden in green darkness deep, Feel when I wake The tides of night and day upon thee sweep, And know thy forehead bared before the East, And hear thy forests hushing in the West And in thy bosom, Earth, the slow heart shake: But hear no more the infinite forest murmurs break Into Adieu, Adieu, No more Adieu!

THE VISIT

I reached the cottage. I knew it from the card He had given me--the low door heavily barred, Steep roof, and two yews whispering on guard.

Dusk thickened as I came, but I could smell First red wallflower and an early hyacinth bell, And see dim primroses. "O, I can tell,"

I thought, "they love the flowers he loved." The rain Shook from fruit bushes in new showers again As I brushed past, and gemmed the window pane.

Bare was the window yet, and the lamp bright. I saw them sitting there, streamed with the light That overflowed upon the enclosing night.

"Poor things, I wonder why they've lit up so," A voice said, passing on the road below. "Who are they?" asked another. "Don't you know?"

Their voices crept away. I heard no more As I crossed the garden and knocked at the door. I waited, then knocked louder than before,

And thrice, and still in vain. So on the grass I stepped, and tap-tapped on the rainy glass. Then did a girl without turning towards me pass

From the room. I heard the heavy barred door creak, And a voice entreating from the doorway speak, "Will you come this way?"--a voice childlike and quick.

The way was dark. I followed her white frock, Past the now-chiming, sweet-tongued unseen clock, Into the room. One figure like a rock

Draped in an unstarred night--his mother--bowed Unrising and unspeaking. His aunt stood And took my hand, murmuring, "So good, so good!"

Never such quiet people had I known. Voices they scarcely needed, they had grown To talk less by the word than muted tone.

"We'll soon have tea," the girl said. "Please sit here." She pushed a heavy low deep-seated chair I knew at once was his; and I sat there.

I could not look at them. It seemed I made Noise in that quietness. I was afraid To look or speak until the aunt's voice said,

"You were his friend." And that "You were!" awoke My sense, and nervousness found voice and spoke Of what he had been, until a bullet broke

A too-brief friendship. The rock-like mother kept Night still around her. The aunt silently wept, And the girl into the screen's low shadow stept.

"You were great friends," said with calm voice the mother. I answered, "Never friend had such another." Then the girl's lips, "Nor sister such a brother."

Her words were like a sounding pebble cast Into a hollow silence; but at last She moved and bending to my low chair passed

Swift leaf-like fingers o'er my face and said, "You are not like him." And as she turned her head Into full light beneath the lamp's green shade

I saw the sunken spaces of her eyes. Then her face listening to my dumb surprise. "Forgive," she said, "a blind girl's liberties."

"You were his friend; I wanted so to see The friends my brother had. Now let's have tea." She poured, and passed a cup and cakes to me.

"These are my cakes," she smiled; and as I ate She talked, and to the others cup and plate Passed as they in their shadow and silence sat.

"Thanks, we are used to each other," she said when I Rose in the awkwardness of seeing, shy Of helping and of watching helplessly.

And from the manner of their hands 'twas clear They too were blind; but I knew they could hear My pitiful thoughts as I sat aching there.

... I needs must talk, until the girl was gone A while out of the room. The lamp shone on, But the true light out of the room was gone.

"Rose loved him so!" her mother said, and sighed. "He was our eyes, he was our joy and pride, And all that's left is but to say he died."

She ceased as Rose returned. Then as before We talked and paused until, "Tell me once more, What was it he said?" And I told her once more.

She listened: in her face was pride and pain As in her mind's eye near he stood and plain.... Then the thin leaves fell on my cheek again

And on my hands. "He must have loved you well," She whispered, as her hands from my hands fell. Silence flowed back with thoughts unspeakable.

It was a painful thing to leave them there Within the useless light and stirless air. "Let me show you the way. Mind, there's a stair

"Here, then another stair ten paces on.... Isn't there a moon? Good-bye." And she was gone. Full moon upon the drenched fruit garden shone.

TRAVELLING

They talked of old campaigns, nineteen-fourteen And Mons and watery Yser, nineteen-fifteen And Neuve Chapelle, 'sixteen, 'seventeen, 'eighteen And after. And they grumbled, leaving home, Then talked of nineteen-nineteen, nineteen-twenty And after.

Their thoughts wandered, leaving home Among familiar places and known years; Anticipating in the river, of time Rocks, rapids, shallows, idle glazing pools Mirroring their dark dreams of heaven and earth. --And then they parted, one to Chatham, one To Africa, Constantinople one, One to Cologne; and all to an unknown year, Nineteen-nineteen perhaps, or another year.

THE SONG OF THE FOREST

_(11th November, 1918)_

I

To Thee, Most Holy, Most Obscure, light-hidden, Shedding light in the darkness of the mind As gold beams wake the air to birds a-wing; To Thee, if men were trees, would forests bow In all our land, as under a new wind; To Thee, if trees were men, would forests sing Lifting autumnal crowns and bending low, Rising and falling again as inly chidden, Singing and hushing again as inly bidden. To Thee, Most Holy, men being men upraise Bright eyes and waving hands of unarticulating praise.

II

To Thee, Most Holy, Most Obscure, who pourest Thy darkness into each wild-heaving human forest, While some say, "'Tis so dark God cannot live," And some, "It is so dark He never was," And few, "I hear the forest branches give Assurèd signs His wind-like footsteps pass;" To Thee, now that long darkness is enlightened, Lift men their hearts, shaking the death-chill dews. Even sad eyes with morning light are brightened, And in this spiritual Easter's lovely hues Are no more with death's arctic shadow frightened.

III

Here in this morning twilight gleaming pure Mid the high forest boughs and making clear The motion the night-wakeful brain had guessed; Here in this peace that wonders, Is it Peace? And sighs its satisfaction on the shivering air; Here, O Most Holy, here, O bright Obscure, Every deep root within the earth's quick breast Knows that the long night's ended and sore agitations cease, And every leaf of every human tree In England's forest stirs and sings, Light Giver, now to Thee.

IV

I cannot syllable that unworded praise-- An ashen sapling bending in Thy wind, Uplifting in Thy light new-budded leaves; Nor for myself nor any other raise My boughs in music, though the woodland heaves-- O with what ease of pain at length resigned, What hope to the old inheritance restored! Thy praise it is that men at last are glad. Long unaccustomed brightness in their eyes Needs must seem beautiful in thine, bright Lord, And to forget the part that sorrow had In every shadowed breast, where still it lies, Is there not praise in such forgetfulness? For to grieve less means not that love is less.

V

--Nor for myself nor any other. Yet I cannot but remember all that passed Since justice shook these bosoms, and the fret Of indignation stirred them and they cast Forgot aside all lesser wrongs, and rose Against the spiritual evil of that threat That made them of dishonour slaves or foes. And who may but with pride remember how Not by ten righteous justice might be saved, But by unsaintly millions moving all As the tide moves when myriad tossed waves flow One way, and on the crumbling bastions fall; Then sinking backwards unopposed and slow Over the ruined towers where those vain angers raved.

VI

Creep tarnished gilded figures to their holes Who once walked like great men upon the earth Flickering their false shadows. Fear, like a hound, Hunts them, and there's a death in every sound; And had they souls sorrow would prick their souls At every heavy sigh the wind waved forth. ... Into their holes they've crept, and they will die. Of them no more and never any more. Their leper-gilt is gone, and they will lie Poisoning a little earth and nothing more.

VII

--That justice has been saved and wrong been slain, That the slow fever-darkness ends in day, Nor madness shakes the pillared world again With the same blind proud fury; that in vain Whispers the Tempter now, "So pass away Strength, honesty and hope, and nothing left but pain!" That the many-voiced confusion of the night Clears in the winging of a spirit bright With new-recovered joy;--for this, O Light, Light Giver, Night Dispeller, praise should be. But praise is dumb from burning hearts to Thee.

VIII

But as a forest bending in the wind Murmurs in all its boughs after the wind, Sounds uninterpreted and untaught airs; So now when Thy wind over England stirs, The proud and untranslating sounds of praise Mingle tumultuous over our human ways; And magnifying echoes of Thy wind Rouse in the profoundest forests of the mind.

IX

And in the secret thicket where Thy light Is dimmed with starry shining of the night, Hearing these mingled airs from every wood Thou'lt smile serenely down, murmuring, "'Tis good." While Angels in the thicket borders curled Amid the farthest gold beams of Thy hair, Seeing on one drooped beam this distant world Floating illumined, cry, "Bright Lord, how fair!"

OUT OF THE EAST

When man first walked upright and soberly Reflecting as he paced to and fro, And no more swinging from wide tree to tree, Or sheltered by vast boles from sheltered foe, Or crouched within some deep cave by the sea Stared at the noisy waste of water's woe Where the earth ended, and far lightning died Splintered upon the rigid tideless tide;

When man above Time's cloud lifted his head And speech knew, and the company of speech, And from his alien presence wild beasts fled And birds flew wary from his arrow's reach, And cattle trampling the long meadow weed Did sentry in the wind's path set; when each Horn, hoof, claw, sting and sinew against man Was turned, and the old enmity began;

When, following, beneath the hand of kings Moved men their parting ways, and some passed on To forest refuge, some by dark-browed springs, And some to high remoter pastures won, And some o'er yellow deserts spread their wings, Thinning with time and thirst and so were gone Forgotten; when between each wandered host The seldom travellers faltered and were lost;--

In those old days, upon the soft dew'd sward That held its green between the thicket's cloud, Walked two men musing ere the wide moon poured Her full-girthed weightless flood. And one was bowed With years past knowledge, and his face was scored Where light or deep had every long year ploughed-- Pain, labour, present peril, distant dread Scored in his brow and bending his shagged head.

Palsy his frame shook as a harsh wind shakes Complaining reeds fringing a frozen river; His eye the aspect had of frozen lakes Whereunder the foiled waters swirl and quiver; His voice the deep note that the north wind takes Drawn through bare beechwoods where forlorn birds shiver-- Deep and unfaltering. A younger man Listened, while warmer currents in him ran.

"Was not my son even as myself to me, As you to him showed his own life again? Now he is dead, and all I looked to see In him removes to you--less near and plain, Confused with other blood; and what will be I groping cannot tell, and grope in vain. For men have turned to other ways than mine: Yourself are less fulfilment than a sign,

"Sign of a changing world. And change I fear. I have seen old and young like brief gnats die, And have faced death by plague and flood and spear: I have seen mine own familiar people lie In generations reaped; and near and near Age leads on Death--I hear his husky sigh. Yet Death I fear not, but these clouds of change Sweeping the old firm world with new and strange.

"Son of my son, to whom the world shines new, You are strange to me for whom the world is old. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and unto you The past, sole warmth for me, is void and cold. Another passion pours your spirit through, Another faith has leapt upon the fold And wrestles with the ancient faith. 'And lo!' Lightly men say, 'Even the gods come and go!'"

He paused awhile in pacing and hung still, Amid the thickening shades a darker shade. Down the steep valley from the barren hill A herd of deer with antlered leader made Brief apparition. Mist brimmed up until Only the great round heights yet solid stayed-- Then they too changed to spectral, and upon The changing mist wavered, and were gone....

"Standing to-day your father's grave beside, I knew my heart with his was covered there; O, more than flesh did in the cold earth hide-- My past, his promise. There was none to care Save for the body of a prince that died As princes die; there was none whispered, 'Where Moves now among us his unburied part? What breast beats with the pulses of his heart?'

"--Vain thoughts are these that but a dying man Searches among the dark caves of his mind! But as I stood, the very wind that ran Between the files breathed more than common wind, As though the gods of men when Time began, Fathers of fathers of old humankind, Startled, heard now the changeful future knock; And their lament it was from rock to rock

"Tossed with the wind's long echo ... O, speak not, Nor tell me with my loss I am so dazed, That my tongue speaks unfaithfully my thought; That you, you too, within his shadow raised, Stand bare now, wanting all you held or thought, By aimless love or prisoned grief amazed. Tell me not: let me out of silence speak, Or let me still my thoughts in silence break."

And so both stood, and not a word to say, By silence overborne, until at last The young man breathed, "Look how the end of day Falls heavily, as though the earth were cast Into a shapeless soundless pit, where ray Of heavenly light never the verge has past. Yet will the late moon's light anon shine here, And then gray light, and then the sun's light clear.

"Sire, 'twas my father died, and like night's pit Soundless and shapeless yawn my orphaned years. And yet I know morn comes and brings with it Old tasks again, and new joys, hopes and fears. Or sword or plough these fingers will find fit, And morrows end with other cries and tears, With women's arms and children's voices and The sacred gods blessing the new-sown land.

"But look, upon your beard the dew is bright, Chill is the winter fall: let us go in." Then moved they slowly downward till a light Shining the door-post and thonged door between Showed the square Prince's House. Out of the night They passed the sudden rubied warmth within. Curled shadowy by the wall a servant slept: A sleepy hound from the same corner crept.

Soon were they couched. The young man fell asleep; While the old Prince drowsing uneasily, Tossing on the crest of agitations deep, Dreamed waking, waking dreamed. Then memory The unseen hound, did from her corner creep Into his bosom and stirred him with her sigh Soundless. And he arose and answering pressed Her beloved head yet closer to his breast....

Happy those years returned when first he strode Beside his father's knees, or climbed and felt The warm strength of those arms, or singing rode High on his shoulders; or in winter pelt Of dread beasts wrapt, set as his father showed Snares in the frosty grass, and at dawn knelt Beside the snares, and shouting homeward tore, Winged with such pride as seldom manhood wore.

--How many, many, many years ago! There was no older man now walked the earth. Had all those years sunk to a bitter glow, Like the fire lingering yet upon the hearth? Ah, he might warm his hands there still, and so Must warm his heart now in this wintry dearth, Till the reluming sunken fire should give Warmth to his ageing wits and bid him live.

Even this house! It was his father told How in the days half lost in icy time Men first forsook their wormy caves and cold To build where the wind-footed cattle climb; And noise of labour broke the silence old By such unbroken since the sparkling prime Of the world's spring. And so the house arose, A builded cave, perpetual as the snows

On the remotest summits of the range Hemming the north. Then house by house appeared 'Neath valley-eaves, and change following on change Unnoted tamed earth's shaggy front. Men heard Strange voices syllabling with accents strange, By travellers breathed who, startled, paused and feared Seeing the smoke of habitations curled Above this hollow of an unrumoured world.

Startled, they paused and spoke by doubtful sign, Answered by hesitating sign, until Moved one with aspect fearless and benign, And met one fearless, while all else hung still. And then was welcome, rest, and meat and wine And intercourse of uncouth word, as shrill Voice with deep voice was mingled. So they stayed And to astonished eyes strange arts betrayed.

By them the oarage of the wind was taught, And how the quick tail steered the cockled boat. They netted fruitful streams, and smiling brought Their breaking wickers home, too full to float. And opening the earth's rich womb they wrought Arms from the sullied ore; and labouring smote The mountain's bosom, till a path was seen Stony amid the flushed snow and flushed green.

Then first upon earth's wave the silver share Floated, by the teamed oxen drawn; then first Were seed-time rites, and harvest rites when bare The cropped fields lay, and gathered tumult--nurst Long in the breasts of men that laboured there-- Now in the broad ease of fulfilment burst; And when the winter tasks failed in days chill, Weaving of bright-hued yarn, and chattering shrill;

And the loved tones of music sounded sweet Unwonted, when the new-stopped pipe was heard Rising and falling, and the falling feet Of sudden dancers. And old men were stirred With old men's memories of ancient heat When youth sang in their bosoms like a bird.... Sweet that divine musician, Memory, Fingering her many-reeded melody.

Then as he stared into the wasting glow And watched the fire faint in the whitening wood, Came starker shadows moving vast and slow, And echoes of wild strife and smell of blood, Twitching of slain men, cries of parting woe, Bruised bodies ghastly in the mountain flood; Burials and burnings, triumph with terrors blent, And widowed languors and night-long lament.

Like seeds long buried, these dead memories Upthrust in their new green and spread to flower: An eager child against his father's knees Leaning, he had listened many an evening hour. Now these remote reworded histories Entangled with his own renewed their power, Breathing an antique virtue through his mind, As through dense yew boughs breathes the undying wind.

Sighing, he rose up softly. On the wall A dark shape shambled aimless to and fro; Head bent, eyes inward-seeing, rugged, tall, Himself a shadow moved with musings slow Amid his cumbered past, and heard sweet call Of mother voice, and mother folk, and flow Of gentle and proud speech and tender laughter, Story and song, fault and forgiveness after;

And a voice graver, gentler than a man Might hear from any but a woman beloved, Stilling and awakening the blood that ran Like ocean tide, as neared she or removed ... Faded that music. Then a voice began Paining within his heart, yet unreproved; For dear the anguish is that steals upon A father's spirit lamenting his lost son.

--The latest born and latest lost of those Of his strong and her gentle being born. By earthquake, pestilence, by human foes Long were they dead; and yet not all forlorn He grieved, for at his side the youngest rose Bright as a willow gilded by dewy morn.... Felled now the tree, silent that music, still The motion that did all the vale-air fill.

Once more they bore the body from the hunt Where he alone had died. Once more he heard The wail and sigh, and saw once more their front Of drooping grief; once more the wailing stirred Old hounds to baying wilder than was wont; Fell once more like slow, sullen rain each word Reluctant, telling to his senses strayed, How while the gods drowsed and men hung afraid.

Slain was the Prince unwary by the paw Of a springing beast that died in giving death. Again the featureless torn face he saw, The ribboned bosom emptied of warm breath; Again the circle sudden hush'd with awe, And smothered moaning heard the hush beneath. Again, again, and every night again, Vision renewed and voice recalled in vain.

Again those dear and lamentable rites Within the winter stems of forest shade, The pile, the smokeless flame, the thousand lights, The one light that in all the thousand played; Deep burthened voices while, around the heights Lifting, young trebles their wild echo made; Then the returning torches at the pyre Lit, when the eye glowed faint within the fire.

* * * * *

Even as a man that by slow steps may climb An unknown mountain path with tired tread By ice-fringed brook and close herb white with rime, Sees sudden far below a strange land spread Immense; so from his lonely crag of Time The Prince, his eye bewildered and adread, Gazed at the vast, with mist and storm confused, Cloud-racked, and changing even while he mused.

Ending were the old wise and stable ways. Adventurers into distant lands had fared, From distant lands adventurers with gaze Proud and unenvying on his kingdom stared, And sojourning had shaken quiet days With restless knowledge, and strange worship reared Of foreign altars, idols, prayers and songs And sacrifice as to such gods belongs.

And all unsatisfied his people grown Would move from this rejected mountain range By yearlong valley journeys slowly down, Sun-following, till surfeited with change, Mid idle pastures pitched or fabled town, Subdued to climes and kings and customs strange, At length their very name should die away And all their remnant be a vague "Men say."

"Men say!" he sighed, and from that lofty verge Of inward seeing drooped his doubtful sight. Sweet was it from such reverie to emerge And breathe once more the thoughtless air of night, And watch the fire-slave through fresh billets urge The sleeping flame, until the vivid light And toothed shadows wearied.... And then crept The hounds a little nearer, and all slept.

* * * * *

But the young man still lay in quiet sleep, Or half-sleep, and a dream-born cloud enwreathed With memories, hopes and longings hidden deep In his flown mind. Another air he breathed, Saw from an unsubstantial mountain sweep In purest light, soon in low shadow sheathed, Semblance of faint-known faces, or beloved Daily-acquainted still, or long removed.

Even as sacred fire in fennel stalks Through windy ways is borne and densest night, Till where the outpost shivering sentry walks Beating the minutes into hours, the light Touches the guarded pile and, flaring, balks Beasts padding near and each unvisioned sprite By old dread apprehended; and new gladness Shakes in the village prone in winter sadness:--

So through the young man's dream the kingly flame In his own breast was undiminished borne. And other peoples catching from his fame A noble heat, in neighbouring lands forlorn, Would glow with new power and the ancient name Bless, that had brightened through their narrow morn. And purer yet and steadier would pass on The sacred flame to son and son and son.

Or with contracting mind he saw the host Of mountain warriors banded, moving down Untrodden ways, as on young buds a frost Falls, and the spring lies stiff. The air was sown With strife, the fields with blood, the night with ghost Wandering by ghost, and wounded men were strown Surprised, unweaponed; and chill air congealed Each hurt, and with the blood their breath was sealed.

And the loved tones of music sounded fierce When the returning files with aspect proud Approached, and brandished their rich trophied spears. Sweet the pipes' spearlike music, sweet and loud, And music of smitten arms was sweet to tears; Sweet the dance unto smiling gods new vowed, Sweet the recounting song and choral cries, And age's quaverings and girls' envious sighs.

--So of himself, a father-king, he dreamed, Holding an equal nation in his eye. O with what golden points the future gleamed! Rustled the years like laden mule-trains by, Each with its burthen of old time redeemed.... Splendour on splendour poured, and so would lie Unnoted and unmeasured:--metals, herds, Distant-sought wonders, strange growths, beasts and birds.

Within the summer of that splendid shade Might men live happy and nought left to fear, Or if an antique restless spirit played Fretful within their bones, and change drew near Drumming wild airs, and another music made, A father-king, speaking assured and clear, Bidding them follow he would lead them forth Through the yet undiscovered frowning north.

And the last fire on the warm stones would burn, And the smoke linger on the mountain skies. And seeing, they would muse yet of return And then forget their sadness in the cries Confused of the great caravan; and so turn Towards the next sun-setting and the next sunrise Many and many a day and wind and wind Through foreign earth, as a dream through the mind.

Flowing on with the changes of its thought. And doubtful kings entreating them to stay Would sleep the easier when they lingered not; And sullen tribes menacing would make way, And broad slow rivers in their tide be caught, And the long caravan o'er the ford all day And all day and all day pass; while the tide slept In sluggish shallows, or through marsh-reeds crept.

So would they on and on, with death and birth For wayfellows and nightly stars for guide, While seasons bloomed and faded on the earth, And jealous gods their wandering gods would chide. Until, weary of endless going forth Dark-locust-like, the old fret would subside, And young men with aged men and women cry, "In this full-rivered pasture let us lie!

"Here let us lie, and wanderings be at rest!" Midmost a cedar grove high sacrifice Needs then be made, that gods be manifest; And while the smoke spread in long twilit skies, "Here let us lie, and wanderings be at rest," Would old men breathe repeated between sighs. "In this green world and cool," would mothers say, "Rest we, nor with thin babes yet longer stray."

--So stealing from the mind of the old King Exhausted, into the sleeping young man's brain Crept the same dream and lifted on new wing And took from his swift passions a new stain, Sanguine and azure, and first fluttering Rose then on easy vans that bore again The sleeper past his common thought's confine:-- So borne, so soaring, in that air divine,

He saw his people stayed, their journeys ended.... There should they, no more fretful, dwell for ever In the full-nourished pasture where untended Herds multiplied, and famine threatened never, And where high border-hills glittered with splendid Sparse-covered veins washed by the hill-born river. So stead by stead arose, and men there moved Satisfied, and no more vain longings roved.

Again the silver plough gleamed in the sod, And seed from old fields slept in furrows new. Then when Spring's rain and sun together trod And interweaved swift steps the meadow through, Old rites revived; they bore the shapen god With green stalks and first-budded boughs, and drew Together youth and age. And sowers leapt High o'er the seed in earth's cold bosom wrapt:--

So in the golden-hued and burning hours Of harvest, leapt on high the full-eared corn. Friendly to pious hands those imaged Powers Of rain and sun. And when the grain was borne By oxen trailing tangled straws and flowers, With leaves and dying blossoms on each horn, Friendly the gods commingling in the shades Of moon and torch and smoke-delaying glades.

Fell slowly sunset; the starred evening cool Drooped round as mid his people the king rode, Blessing and blessed, and in the faithful pool Of their old loves his clear reflection glowed Like summer's golden moon:--in wise and fool, Noble and mean, accustomed reverence showed Clear-shining; so he reached the unbarred hall Where lamps, lords, servitors flashed festival,

Remembering old journeys and their end. Bright-throned he sat there, with those lords around Snow-polled, co-eval, as with friends their friend Feasting. Arose at length the awaited sound Of bardic chanting, bidding their thoughts descend Into the chamber where the Past lay bound, Wanting but music's finger; so upspringing, The Past stormed all their minds in that loud singing.

And strangers, furred and tawny, seated there, Far travellers from the sunrise, looking on The feasting and the splendour, and with ear Uncertain listening to the solemn tone Of most dear Memory, envied all and sware A sudden fealty. But the bard sang on While silver beakers brimmed untouched; and darkened The proud remembering eyes of men that hearkened.

Then came once more those strangers leading long Migration of their subject folk. They stayed And medley'd and were mingled, and their throng Melted in his like snows, and so were made One with them, and forgot their useless tongue, Nor now their ancient bloody worship paid To painted gods:--name, language, story died When their last faithless exile parting sighed.

So year on year, century on century In his imagination of delight Followed, in a new world all innocency And simpleness, and made for beings bright, Where man to man was friend, unfearful, free, And natural griefs alone darkened their night, And natural joys as the wide air were common, And kindness was the bond of all kin human.

* * * * *

--When the loved reeds of music sounded clear From birds' breasts quivering in tall woodland trees That rustled leafless in the winter air, And with morn's new voice shrilled the western breeze: Folding her wings the dream crept from his ear To hang where bats drowse until daylight dies. Then he from sleep's dear vanity awaking Watched a sole sunbeam the roof-shadows raking.