The silver sun looks down
On the silent tower;
The guards awaken, nor own
To the unguarded hour.
They eye each other's face,
But to speak none durst;
As though the night were ungraced,
Silent they are dispersed.
The cruel King climbs, doth draw
Near, then by he creeps,
Marking in rage and awe
The smile in which she sleeps.
Stamford,
Autumn, 1912, and Autumn, 1913.
THE ECSTASY
I lay upon a headland hill:
The sun spilt out his gold;
The wind blew with a fluttering thrill;
The skies were blue and cold.
All day above the little cove
I heard the long wind flow;
The clouds foamed in the blue above,
The blue sea foamed below.
All day the bare sun fiercely burned;
All day in the profound
And quivering grass my body turned,
One with Earth's turning round.
Till, fledged amid her fluid rings,
My soul began to rouse,
And slowly beat her silver wings
Within her darkened house.
Then with vans lifted up for flight,
With stretched and fiery crest,
Upward she leaped toward the light
And drew from out my breast.
How long I lay while she was fled,
And on the cliff below
My body lay stiff, dark, and dead,
I knew not nor may know.
But long it seemed. Sped beyond sight
My soul enjoyed release;
Beyond the clouds, within the light,
She entered into peace.
To-day, amid a world of men,
How often must I cry:
"Happy I never was but then
Nor shall be till I die!"
Near Gold Cap,
Late Summer, 1916.
THE WATER-LILY
The Lily floated white and red,
Pouring its scent up to the sun;
The rapt sun floating overhead
Watched no such other one.
None marked it as it spread abroad
And beautifully learned to cease:
But Beauty is its own reward,
Being a form of Peace.
1913.
DEEM YOU THE ROSES....
Deem you the roses taste no pleasure
Unfolding hour by hour
Toward, through starlit peace and sunny leisure,
Their sharpest moment, when they dower
This great green world, this rustling place,
Active in music, light, and grace,
With their hid hearts, their golden treasure,
Odours so deep they overpower?
See how, hazed in the sunny weather,
The silken roses swim,
Nodding heads frail as a high cloud's feather,
Expressing Joy in Beauty's Hymn.
And, hark! from many a hidden face
Echoes I hear through silver space:
The Morning Stars that sing together,
And the delighting Seraphim!
Lawford,
Early Summer, 1916.
THE PASSION
Those whose Love, unborn to sight,
Never did itself disclose
Save in water's cry; a rose;
Meteor furrowing the night;
Mote of any turning ray;
Pipe of bird mid sunset's flush;
Rain stilled, leaves flame-wet, and hush
Of a rainbow's fire and spray;
Any straight road leads afar
'Cross a hill-brow—What's beyond?
Seven hung notes of music fond;
Seven dark poplars, one white star;
Cloud lifting a tower aloft;
Light and play and shadowy grace
Of the soul behind a face
Flitting by on motion soft;
Lonely figure on a height;
Those whose love but shines a hint
Fainter than the far sea's glint
To the inland gazer's sight—
These alone, and but in part,
Guess of what my songs are spun,
And Who holds communion
Subtly with my troubled heart.
But the substance of my grief
Scarcely can their thought surmise,
Who but glimpse through these my eyes
Joy as fathomless as brief.
Others in this strange world flung,
Orphans, too, of Destiny,
Have the virtue, but not I,
Keeps heart crystal, single tongue;
And know not, whose hearts are whole,
How—when sickened and unclean,
Unfit or to see, be seen—
Close thorns pack and prick the soul.
Yet though here soul suffereth,
Complicate by vision's light,
Never would I cede this right
Of a sharpened life and death.
For I keep in confidence
In my breast a subtle faith
'Scapes alway by narrow scathe
And I draw my succour thence.
One Day, or maybe one Night—
Living? dying?—I shall see
The Rose open gloriously
On its heart of living light.
Know what any bird may mean,
Meteor in my heart shall rest,
Spelled on my brain blaze th' unguessed
Words of the rainbow's dazzling sheen.
O the hour for which I wait!
Lovers of the Secret Love
Watch with me, and we will prove
Constancy can be elate.
For the sigil we have now
Is but echo, shadow, less
Than a nothing's nothingness,
To what that hour will allow:
Lost and found! The Shining Ones!
Music, passion, scent, delight,
Light and depth and space and height:
Heaven and its seven suns!
Dorset Square,
October, 1916.
LAST WORDS
O let it be
Just such an eve as this when I must die!
To see the green bough soaking, still against a sky
Washed clean after the rain.
To watch the rapturous rainbow flame and fly
Into the gloom where drops fall goldenly,
And in my heart to feel the end of pain.
The end of pain: the late, the long expected!—
To see the skies clear in a sudden minute,
The grey disparting on the blue within it,
And on the low far sea the clouds collected.
In that deep quiet die to all has been,
To be renewed, to bud, to flower again:
My second spring!—whose hope was nigh rejected
Before I go hence and am no more seen.
To hear the blackbird ring out, gay and bold,
The low renewal of the ringdove's moan
From among high, sheltered boughs, and ceaseless fall
Pitter, pitter, patter,
A dribble of gold
From leaves nodding each on the other one,
The hush, calm piping and the slow, sweet mood!
To drink the ripe warm scent of soaking matter,
Wet grass, wet leaves, wet wood,
Wet mould,
The saddest and the grandest scent of all.
So when my dying eyes have loved the trees
Till with huge tears turned blind,
When the vague ears for the last time have hearkened
To the cool stir of the long evening breeze,
The blackbird's tireless call,
Having drunk deep of earth-scent strong and kind,
Come then, O Death, and let my day be darkened.
I shall have had my all.
Lawford,
April, 1916.