Part 2

Ghosts may be ours; but gaze thou not too closely If haply in chill of the dark thou rouse to see One silent of foot, hooded, and hollow of visage, Pause, with secret eyes, to peer out at thee.

He is the Ancient Tapster of this Hostel, To him at length even we all keys must resign; And if he beckon, Stranger, thou too must follow— Love and all peace be thine.

A SIGN

HOW shall I know when the end of things is coming? The dark swifts flitting, the drone-bees humming; The fly on the window-pane bedazedly strumming; Ice on the waterbrooks their clear chimes dumbing— How shall I know that the end of things is coming?

The stars in their stations will shine glamorous in the black; Emptiness, as ever, haunt the great Star Sack; And Venus, proud and beautiful, go down to meet the day, Pale in phosphorescence of the green sea spray— How shall I know that the end of things is coming?

Head asleep on pillow; the peewits at their crying; A strange face in dreams to my rapt phantasma sighing; Silence beyond words of anguished passion; Or stammering an answer in the tongue's cold fashion— How shall I know that the end of things is coming?

Haply on strange roads I shall be, the moorland's peace around me; Or counting up a fortune to which Destiny hath bound me; Or—Vanity of Vanities—the honey of the Fair; Or a greybeard, lost to memory, on the cobbles in my chair— How shall I know that the end of things is coming?

The drummers will be drumming; the fiddlers at their thrumming; Nuns at their beads; the mummers at their mumming; Heaven's solemn Seraph stoopt weary o'er his summing; The palsied fingers plucking, the way-worn feet numbing— And the end of things coming.

GOOD-BYE

THE last of last words spoken is, Good-bye— The last dismantled flower in the weed-grown hedge, The last thin rumour of a feeble bell far ringing, The last blind rat to spurn the mildewed rye.

A hardening darkness glasses the haunted eye, Shines into nothing the watcher's burnt-out candle, Wreathes into scentless nothing the wasting incense, Faints in the outer silence the hunting cry.

Love of its muted music breathes no sigh, Thought in her ivory tower gropes in her spinning, Toss on in vain the whispering trees of Eden, Last of all last words spoken is, Good-bye.

THE MONOLOGUE

ALAS, O Lovely One, Imprisoned here, I tap; thou answerest not, I doubt, and fear. Yet transparent as glass these walls, If thou lean near.

Last dusk, at those high bars There came, scarce-heard, Claws, fluttering feathers, Of deluded bird— With one shrill, scared, faint note The silence stirred.

Rests in that corner, In puff of dust, a straw— Vision of harvest-fields I never saw, Of strange green streams and hills, Forbidden by law.

These things I whisper, For I see—in mind— Thy caged cheek whiten At the wail of wind, That thin breast wasting; unto Woe resigned.

Take comfort, listen! Once we twain were free; There was a Country— Lost the memory ... Lay thy cold brow on hand, And dream with me.

Awaits me torture, I have smelt their rack; From spectral groaning wheel Have turned me back; Thumbscrew and boot, and then— The yawning sack.

Lean closer, then; Lay palm on stony wall. Let but thy ghost beneath Thine eyelids call: 'Courage, my brother,' Nought Can then appal.

Yet coward, coward am I, And drink I must When clanks the pannikin With the longed-for crust; Though heart within is sour With disgust.

Long hours there are, When mutely tapping—well, Is it to Vacancy I these tidings tell? Knock these numb fingers against An empty cell?

Nay, answer not. Let still mere longing make Thy presence sure to me, While in doubt I shake: Be but my Faith in thee, For sanity's sake.

AWAKE!

WHY hath the rose faded and fallen, yet these eyes have not seen? Why hath the bird sung shrill in the tree—and this mind deaf and cold? Why have the rains of summer veiled her flowers with their sheen And this black heart untold?

Here is calm Autumn now, the woodlands quake, And, where this splendour of death lies under the tread, The spectre of frost will stalk, and a silence make, And snow's white shroud be spread.

O Self! O self! Wake from thy common sleep! Fling off the destroyer's net. He hath blinded and bound thee. In nakedness sit; pierce thy stagnation, and weep; Or corrupt in thy grave—all Heaven around thee.

FORGIVENESS

'O thy flamed cheek, Those locks with weeping wet, Eyes that, forlorn and meek, On mine are set.

'Poor hands, poor feeble wings, Folded, a-droop, O sad! See, 'tis my heart that sings To make thee glad.

'My mouth breathes love, thou dear. All that I am and know Is thine. My breast—draw near: Be grieved not so!'

THE MOTH

ISLED in the midnight air, Musked with the dark's faint bloom, Out into glooming and secret haunts The flame cries, 'Come!'

Lovely in dye and fan, A-tremble in shimmering grace, A moth from her winter swoon Uplifts her face:

Stares from her glamorous eyes; Wafts her on plumes like mist; In ecstasy swirls and sways To her strange tryst.

NOT THAT WAY

NO, no. Guard thee. Get thee gone. Not that way. See; the louring clouds glide on, Skirting West to South; and see, The green light under that sycamore tree— Not that way.

There the leaden trumpets blow, Solemn and slow. There the everlasting walls Frown above the waterfalls Silver and cold; Timelessly old: Not that way.

Not toward Death, who, stranger, fairer, Than any siren turns his head— Than sea-couched siren, arched with rainbows, Where knell the waves of her ocean bed.

Alas, that beauty hangs her flowers For lure of his demoniac powers: Alas, that from these eyes should dart Such piercing summons to thy heart; That mine in frenzy of longing beats, Still lusting for these gross deceits. Not that way!

CRAZED

I know a pool where nightshade preens Her poisonous fruitage in the moon; Where the frail aspen her shadow leans In midnight cold a-swoon.

I know a meadow flat with gold— A million million burning flowers In noon-sun's thirst their buds unfold Beneath his blazing showers.

I saw a crazèd face, did I, Stare from the lattice of a mill, While the lank sails clacked idly by High on the windy hill.

FOG

STAGNANT this wintry gloom. Afar The farm-cock bugles his 'Qui vive?' The towering elms are lost in mist; Birds in the thorn-trees huddle a-whist; The mill-race waters grieve. Our shrouded day Dwindles away To final black of eve.

Beyond these shades in space of air Ride exterrestrial beings by? Their colours burning rich and fair, Where noon's sunned valleys lie? With inaudible music are they sweet— Bell, hoof, soft lapsing cry?

Turn marvellous faces, each to each?— Lips innocent of sigh, Or groan or fear, sorrow and grief, Clear brow and falcon eye; Bare foot, bare shoulder in the heat, And hair like flax? Do their horses beat Their way through wildernesses infinite Of starry-crested trees, blue sward, And gold-chasm'd mountain, steeply shored O'er lakes of sapphire dye?

Mingled with lisping speech, faint laughter, Echoes the Phoenix' scream of joyance Mounting on high?— Light-bathed vistas and divine sweet mirth, Beyond dream of spirits penned to earth, Condemned to pine and die?...

Hath serving Nature, bidden of the gods, Thick-screened Man's narrow sky, And hung these Stygian veils of fog To hide his dingied sty?— The gods who yet, at mortal birth, Bequeathed him Fantasy?

_SOTTO VOCE_

(To Edward Thomas)

THE haze of noon wanned silver-grey The soundless mansion of the sun; The air made visible in his ray, Like molten glass from furnace run, Quivered o'er heat-baked turf and stone And the flower of the gorse burned on— Burned softly as gold of a child's fair hair Along each spiky spray, and shed Almond-like incense in the air Whereon our senses fed.

At foot—a few sparse harebells: blue And still as were the friend's dark eyes That dwelt on mine, transfixèd through With sudden ecstatic surmise.

'Hst!' he cried softly, smiling, and lo, Stealing amidst that maze gold-green, I heard a whispering music flow From guileful throat of bird, unseen:— So delicate the straining ear Scarce carried its faint syllabling Into a heart caught-up to hear That inmost pondering Of bird-like self with self. We stood, In happy trance-like solitude, Hearkening a lullay grieved and sweet— As when on isle uncharted beat 'Gainst coral at the palm-tree's root, With brine-clear, snow-white foam afloat, The wailing, not of water or wind— A husht, far, wild, divine lament, When Prospero his wizardry bent Winged Ariel to bind....

Then silence, and o'er-flooding noon. I raised my head; smiled too. And he— Moved his great hand, the magic gone— Gently amused to see My ignorant wonderment. He sighed. 'It was a nightingale,' he said, 'That _sotto voce_ cons the song He'll sing when dark is spread; And Night's vague hours are sweet and long. And we are laid abed.'

THE IMAGINATION'S PRIDE

BE not too wildly amorous of the far, Nor lure thy fantasy to its utmost scope. Read by a taper when the needling star Burns red with menace in heaven's midnight cope. Friendly thy body: guard its solitude. Sure shelter is thy heart. It once had rest Where founts miraculous thy lips endewed, Yet nought loomed further than thy mother's breast.

O brave adventure! Ay, at danger slake Thy thirst, lest life in thee should, sickening, quail; But not toward nightmare goad a mind awake, Nor to forbidden horizons bend thy sail— Seductive outskirts whence in trance prolonged Thy gaze, at stretch of what is sane-secure, Dreams out on steeps by shapes demoniac thronged And vales wherein alone the dead endure.

Nectarous those flowers, yet with venom sweet. Thick-juiced with poison hang those fruits that shine Where sick phantasmal moonbeams brood and beat, And dark imaginations ripe the vine. Bethink thee: every enticing league thou wend Beyond the mark where life its bound hath set Will lead thee at length where human pathways end And the dark enemy spreads his maddening net.

Comfort thee, comfort thee. Thy Father knows How wild man's ardent spirit, fainting, yearns For mortal glimpse of death's immortal rose, The garden where the invisible blossom burns. Humble thy trembling knees; confess thy pride; Be weary. O, whithersoever thy vaunting rove, His deepest wisdom harbours in thy side, In thine own bosom hides His utmost love.

THE WANDERERS

WITHIN my mind two spirits strayed From out their still and purer air, And there a moment's sojourn made; As lovers will in woodlands bare. Nought heeded they where now they stood, Since theirs its alien solitude Beyond imagination fair.

The light an earthly candle gives When it is quenched leaves only dark; Theirs yet in clear remembrance lives And, still within, I whispered, 'Hark;' As one who faintly on high has heard The call note of a hidden bird Even sweeter than the lark.

Yet 'twas their silence breathed only this— 'I love you.' As if flowers might say, 'Such is our natural fragrantness;' Or dewdrop at the break of day Cry 'Thus I beam.' Each turned a head, And each its own clear radiance shed With joy and peace at play.

So in a gloomy London street Princes from Eastern realms might pause In secret converse, then retreat. Yet without haste passed these from sight; As if a human mind were not Wholly a dark and dismal spot— At least in their own light.

THE CORNER STONE

STERILE these stones By time in ruin laid. Yet many a creeping thing Its haven has made In these least crannies, were falls Dark's dew, and noonday shade.

The claw of the tender bird Finds lodgment here; Dye-winged butterflies poise; Emmet and beetle steer Their busy course; the bee Drones, laden, near.

Their myriad-mirrored eyes Great day reflect. By their exquisite farings Is this granite specked; Is trodden to infinite dust; By gnawing lichens decked.

Toward what eventual dream Sleeps its cold on, When into ultimate dark These lives shall be gone, And even of man not a shadow remain Of all he has done?

THE SPIRIT OF AIR

CORAL and clear emerald, And amber from the sea, Lilac-coloured amethyst, Chalcedony; The lovely Spirit of Air Floats on a cloud and doth ride, Clad in the beauties of earth Like a bride.

So doth she haunt me; and words Tell but a tithe of the tale. Sings all the sweetness of Spring Even in the nightingale? Nay, but with echoes she cries Of the valley of love; Dews on the thorns at her feet, And darkness above.

THE UNFINISHED DREAM

RARE-SWEET the air in that unimagined country— My spirit had wandered far From its weary body close-enwrapt in slumber Where its home and earth-friends are;

A milk-like air—and of light all abundance; And there a river clear Painting the scene like a picture on its bosom, Green foliage drifting near.

No sign of life I saw, as I pressed onward, Fish, nor beast, nor bird, Till I came to a hill clothed in flowers to its summit, Then shrill small voices I heard.

And I saw from concealment a company of elf-folk With faces strangely fair, Talking their unearthly scattered talk together, A bind of green-grasses in their hair,

Marvellously gentle, feater far than children, In gesture, mien and speech, Hastening onward in translucent shafts of sunshine, And gossiping each with each.

Straw-light their locks, on neck and shoulder falling, Faint of almond the silks they wore, Spun not of worm, but as if inwoven of moonbeams And foam on rock-bound shore;

Like lank-legged grasshoppers in June-tide meadows, Amalillios of the day, Hungrily gazed upon by me—a stranger, In unknown regions astray.

Yet, happy beyond words, I marked their sunlit faces, Stealing soft enchantment from their eyes, Tears in my own confusing their small image, Harkening their bead-like cries.

They passed me, unseeing, a waft of flocking linnets; Sadly I fared on my way; And came in my dream to a dreamlike habitation, Close-shut, festooned and grey.

Pausing, I gazed at the porch dust-still, vine-wreathèd, Worn the stone steps thereto, Mute hung its bell, whence a stony head looked downward, Grey 'gainst the sky's pale-blue—

Strange to me: strange....

MUSIC

O restless fingers—not that music make! Bidding old griefs from out the past awake, And pine for memory's sake.

Those strings thou callest from quiet mute to yearn, Of other hearts did hapless secrets learn, And thy strange skill will turn

To uses that thy bosom dreams not of: Ay, summon from their dark and dreadful grove The chaunting, pale-cheeked votaries of love.

Stay now, and hearken! From that far-away Cymbal on cymbal beats, the fierce horns bray, Stars in their sapphire fade, 'tis break of day.

Green are those meads, foam-white the billow's crest, And Night, withdrawing in the cavernous West, Flings back her shadow on the salt sea's breast.

Snake-haired, snow-shouldered, pure as flame and dew, Her strange gaze burning slumbrous eyelids through, Rises the Goddess from the wave's dark blue.

TIDINGS

LISTEN, I who love thee well Have travelled far, and secrets tell; Cold the moon that gleams thine eyes, Yet beneath her further skies Rests for thee, a paradise.

I have plucked a flower in proof, Frail, in earthly light forsooth: See, invisible it lies In this palm: now veil thine eyes: Quaff its fragrancies.

Would indeed my throat had skill To breathe thee music, faint and still— Music learned in dreaming deep In those lands, from Echo's lip ... 'Twould lull thy soul to sleep.

THE SON OF MELANCHOLY

UNTO blest Melancholy's house one happy day I took my way: Into a chamber was shown, whence could be seen Her flowerless garden, dyed with sunlit green Of myrtle, box, and bay.

Cool were its walls, shade-mottled, green and gold, In heavy fold Hung antique tapestries, from whose fruit and flower Light had the bright hues stolen, hour by hour, And time worn thin and old.

Silence, as of a virginal laid aside, Did there abide. But not for voice or music was I fain, Only to see a long-loved face again— For her sole company sighed.

And while I waited, giving memory praise, My musing gaze Lit on the one sole picture in the room, Which hung, as if in hiding, in the gloom From evening's stealing rays.

Framed in fast-fading gilt, a child gazed there, Lovely and fair; A face whose happiness was like sunlight spent On some poor desolate soul in banishment, Mutely his grief to share.

Long, long I stood in trance of that glad face, Striving to trace The semblance that, disquieting, it bore To one whom memory could not restore, Nor fix in time and space.

Sunk deep in brooding thus, a voice I heard Whisper its word: I turned—and, stooping in the threshold, stood She—the dark mistress of my solitude, Who smiled, nor stirred.

Her ghost gazed darkly from her pondering eyes Charged with surmise; Challenging mine, between mockery and fear, She breathed her greeting, '_Thou_, my only dear! Wherefore such heavy sighs?'

'But this?' One instant lids her scrutiny veiled; Her wan cheek paled. 'This child?' I asked. 'Its picture brings to mind Remembrance faint and far, past thought to find, And yet by time unstaled.'

Smiling, aloof, she turned her narrow head, 'Make thou my face thy glass,' she cried and said. 'What would'st thou see therein—thine own, or mine? O foolish one, what wonder thou did'st pine?

Long thou hast loved me; yet hast absent been. See now: Dark night hath pressed an entrance in. Jealous! thou dear? Nay, come; by taper's beam Share thou this pictured Joy with me, though nought but a dream.'

THE QUIET ENEMY

HEARKEN—NOW the hermit bee Drones a quiet thren dy; Greening on the stagnant pool The criss-cross light slants silken-cool; In the venomed yew tree wings Preen and flit. The linnet sings.

Gradually the brave sun Drops to a day's journey done; In the marshy flats abide Mists to muffle midnight-tide. Puffed within the belfry tower Hungry owls drowse out their hour....

Walk in beauty. Vaunt thy rose. Flaunt thy transient loveliness. Pace for pace with thee there goes A shape that hath not come to bless.

I thine enemy?... Nay, nay. I can only watch and wait Patient treacherous time away, Hold ajar the wicket gate.

THE FAMILIAR

'ARE you far away?' 'Yea, I am far—far; Where the green wave shelves to the sand, And the rainbows are; And an ageless sun beats fierce From an empty sky: There, O thou Shadow forlorn, Is the wraith of thee, I.'

'Are you happy, most Lone?' 'Happy, forsooth! Who am eyes of the air; voice of the foam; Ah, happy in truth. My hair is astream, this cheek Glistens like silver, and see, As the gold to the dross, the ghost in the mirk, I am calling to thee.'