PART I
EARLY VERSE
THE SECRET WAY
Stark on the window’s early grey Lined out in squares by casement bars, She saw her lily lift to take The sinking stars.
Within the room’s delaying dark Intimate things lay dim and still With all their day-time friendliness Gone false and chill.
Her hand upon the coverlet, Her face low in the linen’s cleft, They were as wan as water-flowers By light bereft.
And never was bloom brought to her couch But shed the odour of a sigh Because she was as white as they, And they must die.
“O Pale, lit deep within the dark Of your young eyes, a stifled light Leaps thin and keen as melody And leavens night.
“It is a light that did not burn When you were gay at mart and fair; O Pale, what is that starry fire, Fed unaware?”
Then softly she: “I may not tell What other eyes behold in mine; But I have melted night and day In some wild wine.
“I may not read the graven cup Exhaustless as a brimming bell Distilling silver; but I drank And all is well.
“One morn like this, bitter still, I waited for the early stir Of those who slept the while I watched What muffled wonders were.
“I saw my lily on the sill; I saw my mirror on the wall Take light that was not; and I saw My spectral taper tall.
“Why I had known these quiet things Since I could speak. Yet suddenly They all touched hands and in one breath They spoke to me.
“I may not tell you what they said. The strange part is that I must lie And never tell you what we say---- These things and I.
“I only know that common things Bear sudden little spirits set Free by the rose of dawn and by Night’s violet.
“I only know that when I hear Clear tone, the haunted echoes bear Legions of little winged feet On printless air.
“And when warm colour weds my look A word is uttered tremblingly, With meaning fall--but I know not What it may be.
“I only know that now I find Abiding beauty everywhere; Or if it bide not, that it fades Is still more fair.
I long to question those I love And yet I know not what to say; I am alone as one upon Some secret way.
“My words are barren of my bliss; The strange part is that I must lie And never tell you what we say-- These things and I.
“So will it be when I am not. A little more perhaps to tell; Yet then as now I may not say What I know well.”
She died when all the east was red. And we are they who know her fate Because we love the way of life That she had found too late.
TERZA RIMA
I: OLD TALK
Old Eyelot sees what never is. She says: “Pale lights move on the hill, Deep in the air are treasuries.”
She says: “I never go to mill Wood-way but something walks with me, So go wood-way I always will.
Wood-walking, I go mad to see What will die out just as I turn To catch it by the crooked tree.
I pass the bush that I saw burning With wild black flame at full of moon. That was a sight to set one learning
What things one merely doubts at noon. A-well, I know not what I learned. God send that you may learn it soon.
Windows for walls, thoughts that have turned Back into folk, gateways of horn, And the wild hearts that men have burned,
These things I see. And ay, one morn I saw the little people bear Away my little child new-born.
They gave her food yielded in air, Honey and rose-down. I looked and she was very fair.
So when the people of the town (Who did not know) believed her dead And wrapped her in a cloudy gown
I did not mourn. I only said: “She is the daughter of the Day And with the Night she has been wed.
“I am the mother of that one Born for two worlds. And I am she Who sees more things than moon and sun And little stars will ever see.”
* * *
Old Eyelot sees what never is. She says: “Green lights move on the leas, Deep in the air are treasuries.” I wonder what old Eyelot sees?
II: MAGIC
An ancient wildwood showed its heart to me. (O Little Wind that brought me what it said!) I went within its great nave reverently.
There dwelt the silence ever lightly wed With winged sound. There the persuading green Took ancient citadels with soundless tread.
Was not the opening blue of buds between Soft solitary leaves a lyric set To music of the things that lift and lean?
My hands were mother-tender of the net Of silk they found. My feet were light To loose no dew from the least violet.
The fragile fabric of dissolved night Seemed in the air. A million little minds Kept concert in the very realm of sight.
O--and suddenly as sunlight finds White towers I heard the ancient wood unfold Its ancient secret piped by little winds.
“Behold the beauty in me. O behold The beauty that makes utter peace, in me; Beauty that is immeasurably old.”
The whole world like a bell heard echoingly. Words wonderful! I found a fairy bed And saw that which the wildwood let me see. (O Little Wind that brought me what it said!)
III: NIGHT IS HERE
Night is here and star-rise And demeanour of the dark. Visioned by my closed eyes
Now I lie within an arc. Lyric loom, All the silence is a-hark
For a poppy bud to bloom In some flowery harmony Woven through this quiet room.
Prick of light and shadow take me, Fire and stars and voices keep, Fairy clamour will not wake me ... ... Sleep.
But that warm grave of sleep Nothing save myself immures. Singing light and dreaming deep Now my spirit walks with yours.
BALLADES OF THREE SENSES
I
BALLADE OF EYES THAT SEE
Leaves loosened when there blow No winds; long fields whose green Dim beneath the darling bow Of the May-moon is seen; Robins at dawn; the keen Sour odour of vines--these show Frail meanings caught between The bourne of yes and no. Yet there is tender art To fathom what they mean, Deep in the heart.
I go among them. Now I lean Where willows fret the flow Of water that has been For miles to glean. And in the osiers--O An ouphe, an elfin queen. I did not see her--lo, The osiers did not part, Yet she was there I ween, Deep in the heart.
_Envoy_
Spells, lay upon the screen The things that move me so. I ask the better part: To see with eyes serene What things these others know---- Deep in the heart.
II
BALLADE OF LISTENING
On summer slopes lit white With old desire of day, The air with pearl bedight Prepares for gold array. The sun-drugged stars delay To die; the winds take fright And question, and betray Frail sounds for my delight. O voice of ancient springs! O little echo-flight! O harp of things!
In grasses that lie bright, In grasses that lie grey, Up on the clouded height Down in the zone of May Are printless feet astray. Airy the hands that smite The lyre in nameless lay; And the great gods invite Echo of earth chantings On quiet wing away. O--harp of things!
_Envoy_
Harp, is it this that you say? “Delicate is my might, Quickening the voice that sings; For I am sense grown fey. I am word of the morn and the night.” O harp of things!
III
BALLADE OF OLD PERFUMES
Now out of dream old springs Flow soft with many red And golden fluttering things. Sweetly from underhead All the wan air is fed With faint rememberings Of hours long buried. Rose-rumours steal and stir; They come on wind-like wings. The old odours that were Nard and mint and myrrh.
I think that as there clings Colour to blossoms shed, So love and all that sings, So hearts that beat and bled Were with old fragrance wed. Now when the garden flings On many a secret thread Sweets to the wanderer, Some buried witch-bell rings The old odours that were Nard and mint and myrrh.
_Envoy_
Spring, let me lay my head Where the wild season sings Some dead girl’s heart from her. O young heart, ages dead, Old odours thrill mute strings. The old odours that were Nard and mint and myrrh.
HOKKU
The way that shadow fell along the floor! I too have waited for a shadow.
HOKKU
Two butterflies. Two birds. O the wide night of space. Sweet, hold me close.
HOKKU
Yellow I see is my close friend. She can create a sun.
HOKKU
I would have stayed the dawn down the dark sky. But there were many dawns.
HOKKU
A child’s faint cry. But you and I have had A birth since birth. Only there was no cry.
HOKKU
A candle flame. My love has put it out. It did not know its bliss. Shall I, in death?
HOKKU
Cloths, fans, stones slumberous, colour and fancy and lilt. No hard straight place to be. O quiet sky.
HOKKU
I made a garden. Afterward it died. It never even knew it was a garden.
SONNETS AND VARIATIONS
WHEN DID SPRING DIE?
When did Spring die? I did not see her go Down the bright lane she painted. All flower-still She moved among her emblems on the hill Touching away their burden of old snow. Was it on some great down where long winds flow That the wild spirit of Spring went out to fill The eyes of Summer? Did a daffodil Lift the pale urn remote where she lies low?
O not as other moments did she die, That woman-season outlined like a rose. Before the banner of Autumn’s scarlet bough The Summer fell; and Winter with a cry Wed with March wind. Spring did not die like those But vaguely, as if Love had prompted: Now.
ONE DAWN SHE WOKE ME----
One dawn she woke me when the darkness lay Faint on the Summer fields. The air Was like a question. Green was grey With dew distilled in delitesence where Covert, the night-folk wrought. She said: “Dear one, It is our holiday.” Forth we went Finding new kindred, new bequest of sun, Inheriting again the firmament.
Long ago ... The old years lie upon her grave like flowers. The alchemy of hours Has made me someone whom she would not know. How strangely that frail morning lives and towers When I am other and when she lies low.
THERE ARE WITHIN US LIVES WE NEVER LIVE
There are within us lives we never live By sense or soul, for being does not know To tell their depth or breast their flow Or to taste the sweetness that they give. And now in distance, now in voices still, In pity or in harmony, in sleep, We lead unconscious lives, old, deep, Upon the far slope of an unknown hill.
Is it not here that life walks wreathed at last? Many a soul meets many a soul with this: That muted lips and wistful eyes are passed In silence; yet a sign there is Burning in air, though but a shadow fall Or some pale sunbeam steal along the wall.
LAST NIGHT I DREAMED I SAW MY MOTHER YOUNG
Last night I dreamed I saw my mother young. I never knew her till her hair was grey; Last night I saw the shadows lit away And pearls about her shoulders strung. Out from our haunts of home among She came as if she knew them not. There lay Old hope in her young eyes. And gay Her speech came in some laughing tongue.
I who had watched the stolen march of days And would not see the theft which was their sign Moved happily to meet her, mute with praise For this the witchery that made her fair. But yet the pretty hand that lay in mine Was not the one I love upon my hair.
WHY AM I SILENT?
Why am I silent? Tell me how to speak With all the sweet familiars of the way; Call Summer by her name; and with the Day Walk royally companioned cheek on cheek For that faint speech awhile withheld, that weak Task of the Word undone is the great Nay, The winged thunder that denies the ray. Yet once when first I saw the hapless Greek By present impulse of the god urged on Seek out the shadow of the awful grove, I felt the word. I caught it once again In a sweet flash of arrowy sun that shone Thickening on flowers. But when You sorrowed, Love, I knew it then....
I WANDERED WHERE THE WONDER OF THE SKY----
I wandered where the wonder of the sky Was wide upon me. Isle beyond isle the east Was signing that the Summer night had ceased Upon the dawn. Then came a stranger by Immersed in the magic as was I. We stood together at the sorcerer’s feast Saying half-words; and as the day increased We parted with a farewell almost shy.
Something was there. There was drawn silently Through into life some fiery, clouded thing. O wise For one sweet flash of time we stood to see Death and the Inbeing Lie dreaming in each other’s eyes.
HERE A STILL FIELD
Here a still field. I move within the green, It lies aloof. Look where I will The steady glory of noon on the hill Lays its divine indifference on the scene. I seem too far. I listen and I lean, Yet never will the burying hours fulfill One hope of nearness to the Far and Still, But wound me with the sweet that they might mean.
Is there no keener speech for us than this Old incommunicable urge to know The speech of silence.... Yes--here a still field! What more--what more? For here the Comrade is, The God who waits alone and would have sealed Our compact with glad laughter long ago.
RETURN
How they come back ... I never see retreat Down the long beach the phalanx of bright foam But faint across the fields that fold them home I hear the rhythmic fall of speeding feet. And they who loved the garden of the sea And died, come back. I never know a land Of cities but there come to me Their dead to touch my hand.
Dead, who dare not let your eyes Flower from the dusk and flame into our own, Yet come you as hushed notes in harmonies To ways of life that you have known: Virgil in blowing spray round swift-prowed ships, Dante in every cry of lips for lips.
BY MY SIDE ALL DAY ANOTHER WENT
By my side all day another went. We breathed the cold spiced air of the Spring dark Before the dawn; together at the hark Of noon we listened; and we bent To borrow from still grasses the warm scent Of afternoon and dusk. We stood to mark The deathless ark Unveiled before the light was spent.
Prodigal of sweetness that old day I passed, nor might See how that one beside me stooped to lay Something aside. Now in the night The gleaner hunts me down Bringing regret. I wear it for a crown.
IN J. P. P.’s METRE
I
Here a vine, there a voice, Then a violin; All the quiet is astir Like a flute within.
Here a light, there a leaf, Little boughs that lean; And the people who move by Wonder what they mean.
“Look,” they say, “there a star Watching in a well; Line and green and melody----” Then they try to tell.
O why ask what they mean? What is there to win? Have we not the light, the leaf And the violin?
II
All the air is liveried In a kind of white; It is not like the darkness Or the light; It is like the covenant Of a clearer sight.
Now a sudden bud is born Burning in the dew; There the fog rose palely lifting All as if it knew The faint flowing speech Of the friendly blue.
Oh the little hurrying wing Like a blowing leaf; Oh the shadows gathering in Many a sheaf; There a cloud is carved like some Airy coral reef.
Like a new sense these venture In the veins and lo, All the blood is musical In its beat and flow; And we wait wondering What new thing we know.
III
TO A POET
Woo a little choir of words, Teach them to sing; Let them thrill the air like birds Love-summoning. Thread the silence with a lute, Sound the spiral of a flute. ... Vain, but vain. The words are mute.
Open now your own heart Where a rose may be; Live your love and use your art, Make melody, For your joy, your joy is there, Sing the secret thing you bear! ... Only silence everywhere.
... Show the ancient pain that lies With remembered things Down the dark within your eyes Where nothing sings. Now at last there throng Images that waited long, And the silence flowers in song.
EXERCISE IN SPENSERIANS
The air is purged of gold and in its stead Is poured a fire of silver on the green; And now the moon new-risen from the dead Of dearer nights than this finds her demesne Lonely of stars, as they to greet their queen Had rushed in argent riot from the blue To spill themselves like flowers or waste unseen In stealing perfumes that elude and woo As now eludes now woos the wind the sweet night through.
Down from her turret when the dusk was new The Lady Margot stepped and lured by wile Of faint near things that croon of what they do With wandering touch she thought to walk the while The hours were printless on the idle dial. Deep in a garden lamped with lily bells Which hold the light as does some opal vial She took her way near where a fountain wells And wakes its rainbow ribbons into madrigals.
Fluttering she peered within the hollow gloom That cloistered a wild wood beyond the wall; For shapes are woven by the troubled loom Of night; and tremulous tapestries oft fall Across familiar paths and make them all Astir with effigies that snarl and grin And take strange steps along a horrid hall Which is by day a lane of leaves within; As if at night a holy nun should dream of sin.
At length she reached a little windless glade Fragrant with natal April not long flown And dreamful of the days when lips were laid On lips that trembled as they found their own. There where the mooned close was thickest sown With shadows was the lady met with one Who sat with drooping head and made soft moan. He was a stranger knight whose armour shone Bright as the molten golden javelins of the sun.
“What things are griefs?” the Lady Margot sighed And moved a little nearer pityingly. “The wonder wasteth from my days,” he cried, “The burden of my blessings wearieth me! Lo I have journeyed from an unoared sea In the white north to where the winds caress Warm sail-sown oceans murmuring round a key Odorous with wine and fruit in fragrant dress---- And yet I passion for some little happiness.”
“Ay, now,” the lady cried, “most strangely come Are you, Sir Knight, for I am one who longs As never heart has longed before for some Strange world, strange tongue tuneful with alien songs, Strange mad old cities brooding on their wrongs, With unfamiliar streets which smile and show Me many a colonnade and portico Where some unclaimed and starry hour belongs. O you who know all that I long for--bid me go!”
No strange thing seemed her prayer unto the knight Who knew her father’s little court by name, And pitied her that all her beauty bright Must fail and fade in such confined fame. Swiftly he knelt to her and with no shame She gave her hand the while he led her where Within the close the moon took silvery aim And lured a sickle bed of bloom to bear In bloom’s sweet stead a birth of stars pearly as air.
The lady stooped and laid her little hand Upon a dreaming lily whose faint cream And gold, stirred at the fingers’ soft demand, Dreamed that the white touch was their sweetest dream. The lady rose and every opiate beam Made lucent pillage from her unbound hair And moths brushed lightly through the saffron stream In quest of stars. The lady was so fair That the dusk swooned with passion and the light with prayer.
“Nay, now, my child,” the knight said courteously, “Would that your joy lay in your castle home, In phantom folk who pace your broidery, In haunted parchment of a pictured tome. But if you are of those whose hearts must roam Afar afield to meet the hushed advance Of spheres and win from the blown spray and foam What weaker some leave to impotent chance Then, by my blade, that blade shall bring deliverance!”
A little door, covert in creeping green, Gave from the court upon the room where lay The aged doting nurse who wept, I ween, At all the Lady Margot strove to say. But when it had proved vain to weep or pray, She rose and bade her trembling fingers light Her taper and thereby she led the way Through secret gates till, soberly bedight, The three set forth together in the faery night.
O many a league for many a day they went, And some magician kind they were aware Delivered captive treasuries and spent His lavish store of beauty everywhere: Slim brazen towers that taught the sun to share Its shining he revealed; and odorous gloom Packing with odours the receiving air; Flowered silken sails that set the sea abloom; Isles spread with fabrics from the moon’s high loom.
Sometimes the lady knelt in a fleet prow That flung the gaudy bubbles from the blue, And joyed to hear the lean blade of the bow Plunging the thundering sundered breakers through; Keen swept the foam-born breaths of salt, to do Sweet violence to her pale cheek; and all The spirit of her fancy peopled new The perilous sea’s impermanent citadel That kindled into spray with the ship’s rise and fall.
Sometimes she stepped within a pillared way Dim grey with shade and honey-bright with sun Where all the costly stuffs for barter lay, And she might hear how many a drowsing one, Stretched on a pea-cock patterned skin, would run Soft syllable along soft syllable Praising the violet and vermilion Of gems and cloths, right eager-tongued to tell News musical with names to one who loved them well.
Meanwhile the stranger knight was by her side Burning to serve and welcoming command; And never wish of hers might be denied For his swift sword was like a dexterous wand. And by her side in all that alien land The old nurse journeyed plaintive and perplexed, Condemning what she did not understand And with all other understanding vexed; Palsied and muttering charms for what should tide them next.
Then it befell that as they fared the knight Forgot his weariness and many a morn He faced with joy the lottery of light And walked no more apart in mood forlorn. And now, her tremulous shyness half outworn, The Lady Margot oft passed through a town And saw therein but trinkets to adorn Her little bodice and her silken gown; And when he spoke she looked up swiftly and looked down.
O sweet it was to see the two dream on. She wistful of the runes that he could teach Of men and cities dreamed that in such wan Delights lay life; and he for her sweet speech With all its faery fancies would beseech And dreamed that in such fancies lay delight! And all the time the heart of each for each Was calling with the ancient urge of night For night what time the lotus of the dawn is white.
At length they came to a melodious marge Where with sweet perturbation the moved sea Crept lovingly about the land in large Embrace and from such soft nativity The music mounted in dissolving key And wed with wind. There in a crescent cove Sun-lorn and still, the eyes of each leaped free And all the world in a wild silence strove To bare its spirit in their breathed words of love.
“O Sweet, my Sweet,” the knight quoth reverently, “Lo now the marvel: That I wearied sore On such a singing earth as this to be One whom the gods give ever one gift more! There is no spot from shore to patient shore That is not burdened with its waiting bliss; O yet, dear love, how little bliss it bore Were you not near to tremble at my kiss. At last we know the truth: The best of life is this.”
Slow-dipped the idle sail without the bay Sun-smitten in the drowsy afternoon; Unimaged in the ripples’ purple play White reefs of clouds on airy shores were strewn. All fairly the shadows fell and soon When gloaming was poured soft on beach and foam The sea gave up a silver shell--the moon. Then tenderly she turned who longed to roam Afar and whispered: “Love, would that our way led home!”
Nearby upon a rainbow drift of weeds The old nurse mumbled at her prayers and charms, And now her shaking fingers felt her beads, And now in incantation her old arms Were raised to shadowy powers. O grim alarms Beset the gaping ones when love appears! And never lovers’ glance or kiss half warms The world but that some dotard nods and leers And all the charnel souls are tip-toe with their fears.
Now silently across the glimmering sands Slow-paced the lady and the stranger knight, And there were clinging lips and clinging hands And all the uses of the hour were bright; But when they came to where the moon was white Upon the wet weeds, there the old dame lay Stark on the sea-moss and the labyrinth light Received her soul that knew it not. There may Be heaven for such as mock at love but none can say.
Upon the sands the lady knelt and wept; Her lover kissed away her pitying tears; “Nay, tender soul,” he said, “we have but kept The truce of nature with the yester-years. Now are the old things passed away, and fears For the new day are vain. Therefore arise. Love vanquishes the past itself. Love hears The siren cities chant of home. Love’s eyes Have lit a sullen world for me to Paradise.”
Into the silver dark the lovers went, Over the silver sea to golden isles, Piping their songs of heavenly wonderment And fabling the unhaunted age with smiles. And ever with the swift melodious miles A sterner harmony breathed through their bliss; “The old shall be outworn. That which reviles The gods shall perish by their ministries. But we will walk with truth: The best of life is this.”