Chapter 5
Nay--for Narcissus, in the forest pond Seeing his image, made entreaty fond, "Beloved, comfort on my longing pour": So for a while he soothed his passion sore; So cannot I, for all too far is she-- The lady who is queen and love to me.
But since that I have Love's true colours donned, I in his service will not now despond, For in extremes Love yet can all restore: So till her beauty walks the world no more All day remembered in my hope shall be The lady who is queen and love to me.
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_The Last Word_
Before the April night was late A rider came to the castle gate; A rider breathing human breath, But the words he spoke were the words of Death.
"Greet you well from the King our lord, He marches hot for the eastward ford; Living or dying, all or one, Ye must keep the ford till the race be run."
Sir Alain rose with lips that smiled, He kissed his wife, he kissed his child: Before the April night was late Sir Alain rode from the castle gate.
He called his men-at-arms by name, But one there was uncalled that came: He bade his troop behind him ride, But there was one that rode beside.
_"Why will you spur so fast to die? Be wiser ere the night go by. A message late is a message lost; For all your haste the foe had crossed."_
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_"Are men such small unmeaning things To strew the board of smiling Kings? With life and death they play their game, And life or death, the end's the same."_
Softly the April air above Rustled the woodland homes of love: Softly the April air below Carried the dream of buds that blow.
_"Is he that bears a warrior's fame To shun the pointless stroke of shame? Will he that propped a trembling throne Not stand for right when right's his own?_
_"Your oath on the four gospels sworn? What oath can bind resolves unborn? You lose that far eternal life? Is it yours to lose? Is it child and wife?_
But now beyond the pathway's bend, Sir Alain saw the forest end, And winding wide beneath the hill, The glassy river lone and still.
And now he saw with lifted eyes The East like a great chancel rise, And deep through all his senses drawn, Received the sacred wine of dawn.
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He set his face to the stream below, He drew his axe from the saddle bow: "Farewell, Messire, the night is sped; There lies the ford, when all is said."
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_The Viking's Song_
When I thy lover first Shook out my canvas free And like a pirate burst Into that dreaming sea, The land knew no such thirst As then tormented me.
Now when at eve returned I near that shore divine, Where once but watch-fires burned I see thy beacon shine, And know the land hath learned Desire that welcomes mine.
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_The Sufi in the City_
I.
When late I watched the arrows of the sleet Against the windows of the Tavern beat, I heard a Rose that murmured from her Pot: "Why trudge thy fellows yonder in the Street?
II.
"Before the phantom of False Morning dies, Choked in the bitter Net that binds the skies, Their feet, bemired with Yesterday, set out For the dark alleys where To-morrow lies.
III.
"Think you, when all their petals they have bruised, And all the fragrances of Life confused, That Night with sweeter rest will comfort these Than us, who still within the Garden mused?
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IV.
"Think you the Gold they fight for all day long Is worth the frugal Peace their clamours wrong? Their Titles, and the Name they toil to build-- Will they outlast the echoes of our Song?"
V.
O Sons of Omar, what shall be the close Seek not to know, for no man living knows: But while within your hands the Wine is set Drink ye--to Omar and the Dreaming Rose!
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_To Edward Fitzgerald_
(MARCH 31ST, 1909)
'Tis a sad fate To watch the world fighting, All that is most fair Ruthlessly blighting, Blighting, ah! blighting.
When such a thought cometh Let us not pine, But gather old friends Round the red wine-- Oh! pour the red wine!
And there we'll talk And warm our wits With Eastern fallacies Out of old Fitz! British old Fitz!
See him, half statesman-- Philosopher too-- Half ancient mariner In baggy blue-- Such baggy blue!
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Whimsical, wistful, Haughty, forsooth: Indolent always, yet Ardent in truth, But indolent, indolent!
There at the table With us sits he, Charming us subtly To reverie, Magic reverie.
"How sweet is summer's breath, How sure and swift is death; Nought wise on earth, save What the wine whispereth, Dreamily whispereth.
"At Naíshapúr beneath the sun, Or here in misty Babylon, Drink! for the rose leaves while you linger Are falling, ever falling, one by one."
Ah! poet's soul, once more with us conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Once more with us to-night, old Fitz, once more Remould it nearer to the heart's desire!
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_Yattendon_
Among the woods and tillage That fringe the topmost downs, All lonely lies the village, Far off from seas and towns. Yet when her own folk slumbered I heard within her street Murmur of men unnumbered And march of myriad feet.
For all she lies so lonely, Far off from towns and seas, The village holds not only The roofs beneath her trees: While Life is sweet and tragic And Death is veiled and dumb, Hither, by singer's magic, The pilgrim world must come.
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_Devon_
Deep-wooded combes, clear-mounded hills of morn, Red sunset tides against a red sea-wall, High lonely barrows where the curlews call, Far moors that echo to the ringing horn,-- Devon! thou spirit of all these beauties born, All these are thine, but thou art more than all: Speech can but tell thy name, praise can but fall Beneath the cold white sea-mist of thy scorn.
Yet, yet, O noble land, forbid us not Even now to join our faint memorial chime To the fierce chant wherewith their hearts were hot Who took the tide in thy Imperial prime; Whose glory's thine till Glory sleeps forgot With her ancestral phantoms, Pride and Time.
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_Among the Tombs_
She is a lady fair and wise, Her heart her counsel keeps, And well she knows of time that flies And tide that onward sweeps; But still she sits with restless eyes Where Memory sleeps-- Where Memory sleeps.
Ye that have heard the whispering dead In every wind that creeps, Or felt the stir that strains the lead Beneath the mounded heaps, Tread softly, ah! more softly tread Where Memory sleeps-- Where Memory sleeps.
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_Gold_
(AFTER GIOVANNI PASCOLI)
At bedtime, when the sunset fire was red One cypress turned to gold beneath its touch. "Sleep now, my little son," the mother said; "In God's high garden all the trees are such." Then did the child in his bright dream behold Branches of gold, trees, forests all of gold.
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_A Sower_
With sanguine looks And rolling walk Among the rooks He loved to stalk,
While on the land With gusty laugh From a full hand He scattered chaff.
Now that within His spirit sleeps A harvest thin The sickle reaps;
But the dumb fields Desire his tread, And no earth yields A wheat more red.
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_The Mossrose_
Walking to-day in your garden, O gracious lady, Little you thought as you turned in that alley remote and shady, And gave me a rose and asked if I knew its savour-- The old-world scent of the mossrose, flower of a bygone favour--
Little you thought as you waited the word of appraisement, Laughing at first and then amazed at my amazement, That the rose you gave was a gift already cherished, And the garden whence you plucked it a garden long perished.
But I--I saw that garden, with its one treasure The tiny mossrose, tiny even by childhood's measure, And the long morning shadow of the dusty laurel, And a boy and a girl beneath it, flushed with a childish quarrel.
She wept for her one little bud: but he, outreaching The hand of brotherly right, would take it for all her beseeching:
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And she flung her arms about him, and gave like a sister, And laughed at her own tears, and wept again when he kissed her.
So the rose is mine long since, and whenever I find it And drink again the sharp sweet scent of the moss behind it, I remember the tears of a child, and her love and her laughter, And the morning shadows of youth and the night that fell thereafter.
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_Ave, Soror_
I left behind the ways of care, The crowded hurrying hours, I breathed again the woodland air, I plucked the woodland flowers:
Bluebells as yet but half awake, Primroses pale and cool, Anemones like stars that shake In a green twilight pool--
On these still lay the enchanted shade, The magic April sun; With my own child a child I strayed And thought the years were one.
As through the copse she went and came My senses lost their truth; I called her by the dear dead name That sweetened all my youth.
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_To a River in the South_
Call me no more, O gentle stream, To wander through thy sunny dream, No more to lean at twilight cool Above thy weir and glimmering pool.
Surely I know thy hoary dawns, The silver crisp on all thy lawns, The softly swirling undersong That rocks thy reeds the winter long.
Surely I know the joys that ring Through the green deeps of leafy spring; I know the elfin cups and domes That are their small and secret homes.
Yet is the light for ever lost That daily once thy meadows crossed, The voice no more by thee is heard That matched the song of stream and bird.
Call me no more!--thy waters roll Here, in the world that is my soul, And here, though Earth be drowned in night, Old love shall dwell with old delight.
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_On the Death of a Noble Lady_
Time, when thou shalt bring again Pallas from the Trojan plain, Portia from the Roman's hall, Brynhild from the fiery wall, Eleanor, whose fearless breath Drew the venom'd fangs of Death, And Philippa doubly brave Or to conquer or to save--
When thou shalt on one bestow All their grace and all their glow, All their strength and all their state, All their passion pure and great, Some far age may honour then Such another queen of men.
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_Midway_
Turn back, my Soul, no longer set Thy peace upon the years to come Turn back, the land of thy regret Holds nothing doubtful, nothing dumb.
There are the voices, there the scenes That make thy life in living truth A tale of heroes and of queens, Fairer than all the hopes of youth.
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_Ad Matrem Dolorosam_
Think not thy little fountain's rain That in the sunlight rose and flashed, From the bright sky has fallen again, To cold and shadowy silence dashed. The Joy that in her radiance leapt From everlasting hath not slept.
The hand that to thy hand was dear, The untroubled eyes that mirrored thine, The voice that gave thy soul to hear A whisper of the Love Divine-- What though the gold was mixed with dust? The gold is thine and cannot rust.
Nor fear, because thy darling's heart No longer beats with mortal life, That she has missed the ennobling part Of human growth and human strife. Only she has the eternal peace Wherein to reap the soul's increase.
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_Vrais Amants_
(FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
"Time mocks thy opening music with a close; What now he gives long since he gave away. Thou deemst thy sun hath risen, but ere it rose It was eclipsed, and dusk shall be thy day."
Yet has the Dawn gone up: in loveliest light She walks high heaven beyond the shadow there: Whom I too veiled from all men's envious sight With inward eyes adore and silent prayer.
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_The Sangreal_
Once, when beside me in that sacred place I saw my lady lift her lovely head, And saw the Chalice gleam above her face And her dear lips with life immortal red, Then, born again beyond the mist of years, I knelt in Heaven, and drank the wine of tears.
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_Sir Hugh the Palmer_
I
He kneeled among a waste of sands Before the Mother-Maid, But on the far green forest-lands His steadfast eyes were stayed, And like a knight of stone his hands He straightened while he prayed.
"Lady, beyond all women fair, Beyond all saints benign, Whose living heart through life I bear In mystery divine, Hear thou and grant me this my prayer, Or grant no prayer of mine.
"The fever of my spirit's pain Heal thou with heavenly scorn; The dust that but of dust is fain Leave thou in dust forlorn; Yea! bury love to rise again Meet for eternal morn.
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"So by thy grace my inward eyes Thy beauty still shall see, And while our life in shadow lies High dawn shall image thee, Till with thy soul in Paradise Thy servant's soul shall be."
Before the immortal Mother-Maid Low on the sands he kneeled; But even while the words he prayed His lips to patience sealed, Joy in his eyes a radiance made Like stars in dusk revealed.
II
It was an idle company-- Ladies and lordings fine-- Idly under the wild-wood tree Their laughter ran like wine. Yet as they laughed a voice they heard-- A voice where none was seen,-- Singing blithe as a hidden bird Among the forest green.
"Mark ye, mark ye, a lonely knight Riding the green forest: Pardì! for one so poorly dight He lifts a haughty crest!
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Azure and white is all his wear, He hath no gold, I trow! Wanderer, thou in the wild-wood there, Tell us why sing ye so!"
"Noble ladies and lordings gay, God have you all in guard: Since ye are pleased with me to play, My riddle it is not hard. I sing because, of all that ride, I am the least of worth: I sing because, to match my pride, Never was pride on earth.
"But, an ye ask what that may mean, Thus do I answer then: I bear with me the heart of a Queen-- I that am least of men:-- I bear her heart till the end of all, Yea! by her own command I bear the heart of a Queen royal Unto the Holy Land."
Humbly there his crest he bent,-- Azure it waved and white,-- Haughtily there he turned and went Singing, out of their sight. Long, long but his voice they heard,-- A voice where none was seen,-- Singing blithe as a hidden bird, Among the forest green.
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_The Presentation_
When in the womb of Time our souls' own son Dear Love lay sleeping till his natal hour, Long months I knew not that sweet life begun, Too dimly treasuring thy touch of power; And wandering all those days By far-off ways, Forgot immortal seed must have immortal flower.
Only, beloved, since my beloved thou art I do remember, now that memory's vain, How twice or thrice beneath my beating heart Life quickened suddenly with proudest pain. Then dreamed I Love's increase, Yet held my peace Till I might render thee thy own great gift again.
For as with bodies, so with souls it is, The greater gives, the lesser doth conceive: That thou hast fathered Love, I tell thee this, And by my pangs beseech thee to believe. Look on his hope divine-- Thy hope and mine-- Pity his outstretched hands, tenderly him receive!
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_The Inheritance_
While I within her secret garden walked, The flowers, that in her presence must be dumb, With me, their fellow-servant, softly talked, Attending till the Flower of flowers should come. Then, since at Court I had arrived but late, I was by love made bold To ask that of my lady's high estate I might be told, And glories of her blood, perpetuate In histories old.
Then they, who know the chronicle of Earth, Spoke of her loveliness, that like a flame Far-handed down from noble birth to birth, Gladdened the world for ages ere she came. "Yea, yea," they said, "from Summer's royal sun Comes that immortal line, And was create not for this age alone Nor wholly thine, Being indeed a flower whose root is one With Life Divine.
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"To the sweet buds that of herself are part Already she this portion hath bequeathed, As, not less surely, into thy proud heart Her nobleness, O poet, she hath breathed, That her inheritance by them and thee The world may keep alway, When the still sunlight of her eyes shall be Lost to the day, And even the fragrance of her memory Fading away."
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_Amore Altiero_
Since thou and I have wandered from the highway And found with hearts reborn This swift and unimaginable byway Unto the hills of morn, Shall not our love disdain the unworthy uses Of the old time outworn?
I'll not entreat thy half unwilling graces With humbly folded palms, Nor seek to shake thy proud defended places With noise of vague alarms, Nor ask against my fortune's grim pursuing The refuge of thy arms.
Thou'lt not withhold for pleasure vain and cruel That which has long been mine, Nor overheap with briefly burning fuel A fire of flame divine, Nor yield the key for life's profaner voices To brawl within the shrine.
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But thou shalt tell me of thy queenly pleasure All that I must fulfil, And I'll receive from out my royal treasure What golden gifts I will, So that two realms supreme and undisputed Shall be one kingdom still.
And our high hearts shall praise the beauty hidden In starry-minded scorn By the same Lord who hath His servants bidden To seek with eyes new-born This swift and unimaginable byway Unto the hills of morn.
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_The Pedlar's Song_
I tramped among the townward throng A sultry summer's morn: They mocked me loud, they mocked me long, They laughed my pack to scorn. But a likely pedlar holds his peace Until the reckoning's told:-- Merrily I to market went, tho' songs were all my gold.
At weary noon I left the town, I left the highway straight, I climbed the silent, sunlit down And stood by a castle gate. Never yet was a house too high When the pedlar's heart was bold:-- Merrily I to market went, tho' songs were all my gold.
A lady leaned from her window there And asked my wares to see; Her voice made rich the summer air, Richer my soul in me. She gave me only four little words, Words of a language old:-- Merrily I from market came, for all my songs were sold.
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_Benedick's Song_
Though I see within thine eyes Sudden frown of cloudy skies, Yet I bid them "merry morn" For they tell me Love is born. So ha-há! with há-ha-há! For they tell me Love is born.
Storms of mocking from thy lips Lash me still like airy whips; But to-day thy scorn I scorn For I know that Love is born. So ha-há! with há-ha-há! For I know that Love is born.
O the hail that rattles fierce Through my hodden cloak to pierce! What care I if rags be torn? Love and I are beggars born! So ha-há! with há-ha-há! Love and I are beggars born.
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_Love and Grief._
One day, when Love and Summer both were young, Love in a garden found my lady weeping; Whereat, when he to kiss her would have sprung, I stayed his childish leaping.
"Forbear," said I, "she is not thine to-day; Subdue thyself in silence to await her; If thou dare call her from Death's side away Thou art no Love, but traitor.
Yet did he run, and she his kiss received, "She is twice mine," he cried, "since she is troubled; I knew but half, and now I see her grieved My part in her is doubled."
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_Egeria's Silence_
Her thought that, like a brook beside the way, Sang to my steps through all the wandering year, Has ceased from melody--O Love, allay My sudden fear!
She cannot fail--the beauty of that brow Could never flower above a desert heart-- Somewhere beneath, the well-spring even now Lives, though apart.
Some day, when winter has renewed her fount With cold, white-folded snows and quiet rain, O Love, O Love, her stream again will mount And sing again!
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_Against Oblivion_
Cities drowned in olden time Keep, they say, a magic chime Rolling up from far below When the moon-led waters flow.
So within me, ocean deep, Lies a sunken world asleep. Lest its bells forget to ring, Memory! set the tide a-swing!
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_Fond Counsel_
O youth, beside thy silver-springing fountain, In sight and hearing of thy father's cot, These and the morning woods, the lonely mountain, These are thy peace, although thou know'st it not. Wander not yet where noon's unpitying glare Beats down the toilers in the city bare; Forsake not yet, not yet, the homely plot, O Youth, beside thy silver-springing fountain.
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_Youth_
His song of dawn outsoars the joyful bird, Swift on the weary road his footfall comes; The dusty air that by his stride is stirred Beats with a buoyant march of fairy drums. "Awake, O Earth! thine ancient slumber break; To the new day, O slumbrous Earth, awake!"
Yet long ago that merry march began, His feet are older than the path they tread; His music is the morning-song of man, His stride the stride of all the valiant dead; His youngest hopes are memories, and his eyes Deep with the old, old dream that never dies.
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_The Wanderer_
To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west: "O loiterer, hasten where there waits for thee A life to build, a love therein to nest, And a man's work, serving the age to be."
Peace, peace awhile! Before his tireless feet Hill beyond hill the road in sunlight goes; He breathes the breath of morning, clear and sweet, And his eyes love the high eternal snows.
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_The Adventurers_
Over the downs in sunlight clear Forth we went in the spring of the year: Plunder of April's gold we sought, Little of April's anger thought.
Caught in a copse without defence Low we crouched to the rain-squall dense: Sure, if misery man can vex, There it beat on our bended necks.
Yet when again we wander on Suddenly all that gloom is gone: Under and over through the wood, Life is astir, and life is good.
Violets purple, violets white, Delicate windflowers dancing light, Primrose, mercury, moscatel, Shimmer in diamonds round the dell.
Squirrel is climbing swift and lithe, Chiff-chaff whetting his airy scythe, Woodpecker whirrs his rattling rap, Ringdove flies with a sudden clap.
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Rook is summoning rook to build, Dunnock his beak with moss has filled, Robin is bowing in coat-tails brown, Tomtit chattering upside down.
Well is it seen that every one Laughs at the rain and loves the sun; We too laughed with the wildwood crew, Laughed till the sky once more was blue.
Homeward over the downs we went Soaked to the heart with sweet content; April's anger is swift to fall, April's wonder is worth it all.
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_To Clare_
(WITH A VOLUME OF STORIES FROM FROISSART)
My Clare,-- These tales were told, you know, In French, five hundred years ago, By old Sir John, whose heart's delight Was lady sweet and valiant knight. A hundred years went by, and then A great lord told the tales again, When bluff King Hal desired his folk To read them in the tongue they spoke. Last, I myself among them took What I loved best and made this book. Great, lesser, less--these writers three Worked for the days they could not see, And certes, in their work they knew Nothing at all, dear child, of you. Yet is this book your own in truth, Because 'tis made for noble youth, And every word that's living there Must die when Clares are no more Clare.
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_The Return of Summer: An Eclogue_