Part 6

And by the lakes the skies are white, (Oh, the delight!) when swans are coming, Among the flowers sweet joy-bells peal, And quick bees wheel in drowsy humming.

The squirrel leaves her dusty house And in the boughs makes fearless gambol, And, falling down in fire-drops, red, The fruit is shed from every bramble.

Then, gathered all about the trees Glad galaxies of youth are dancing, Treading the perfume of the flowers, Filling the hours with mazy glancing.

And when the dance is done, the trees Are left to Peace and the brown woodpecker, And on the western slopes of sky The day's blue eye begins to flicker.

But at the sighing of the leaves, When all earth grieves for lights departed An ancient and a sad desire Steals in to tire the human-hearted.

No fairy aid can save them now Nor turn their prow upon the ocean, The hundred years that missed each heart Above them start their wheels in motion.

And so our loves are lost, she sighed, And far and wide we seek new treasure, For who on Time or Timeless hills Can live the ills of loveless leisure?

("Fairer than Usna's youngest son, O, my poor one, what flower-bed holds you? Or, wrecked upon the shores of home, What wave of foam with white enfolds you?

"You rode with kings on hills of green, And lovely queens have served you banquet, Sweet wine from berries bruised they brought And shyly sought the lips which drank it.

"But in your dim grave of the sea There shall not be a friend to love you. And ever heedless of your loss The earth ships cross the storms above you.

"And still the chase goes on, and still The wine shall spill, and vacant places Be given over to the new As love untrue keeps changing faces.

"And I must wander with my song Far from the young till Love returning, Brings me the beautiful reward Of some heart stirred by my long yearning.")

Friend, have you heard a bird lament When sleet is sent for April weather? As beautiful she told her grief, As down through leaf and flower I led her.

And friend, could I remain unstirred Without a word for such a sorrow? Say, can the lark forget the cloud When poppies shroud the seeded furrow?

Like a poor widow whose late grief Seeks for relief in lonely byeways, The moon, companionless and dim, Took her dull rim through starless highways.

I was too weak with dreams to feel Enchantment steal with guilt upon me, She slipped, a flower upon the wind, And laughed to find how she had won me.

From hill to hill, from land to land, Her lovely hand is beckoning for me, I follow on through dangerous zones, Cross dead men's bones and oceans stormy.

Some day I know she'll wait at last And lock me fast in white embraces, And down mysterious ways of love We two shall move to fairy places.

_Belgium,_ _July, 1917._