The wind has thrown
The boldest of trees down.
Now disgraced it lies,
Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies,
Naked and still.
It was the wind
So furious and blind
That scourged half England through,
Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew
By dell and hill,
And springing here,
The black clouds dragging near,
Against this lonely elm
Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm
In one wild shock.
As in the deep
Satisfaction of dark sleep
The tree her dream dreamed on,
And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown
And her head rock.
And the wind raught
Her ageing boughs and caught
Her body fast again.
Then in one agony of age, grief, pain,
She fell and died.
Her noble height,
Branches that loved the light,
Her music and cool shade,
Her memories and all of her is dead
On the hill side.
But the wind stooped,
With madness tired, and drooped
In the soft valley and slept,
While morning strangely round the hush'd tree crept
And called in vain.
The birds fed where
The roots uptorn and bare
Thrust shameful at the sky;
And pewits round the tree would dip and cry
With the old pain.
'Ten o'clock's gone!'
Said sadly every one.
And mothers looking thought
Of sons and husbands far away that fought: —
And looked again.
In the hush of early even
The clouds came flocking over,
Till the last wind fell from heaven
And no bird cried.
Darkly the clouds were flocking,
Shadows moved and deepened,
Then paused; the poplar's rocking
Ceased; the light hung still
Like a painted thing, and deadly.
Then from the cloud's side flickered
Sharp lightning, thrusting madly
At the cowering fields.
Thrice the fierce cloud lighten'd,
Down the hill slow thunder trembled
Day in her cave grew frightened,
Crept away, and died.
How near I walked to Love,
How long, I cannot tell.
I was like the Alde that flows
Quietly through green level lands,
So quietly, it knows
Their shape, their greenness and their shadows well;
And then undreamingly for miles it goes
And silently, beside the sea.
Seamews circle over,
The winter wildfowl wings,
Long and green the grasses wave
Between the river and the sea.
The sea's cry, wild or grave,
From bank to low bank of the river rings;
But the uncertain river though it crave
The sea, knows not the sea.
Was that indeed salt wind?
Came that noise from falling
Wild waters on a stony shore?
Oh, what is this new troubling tide
Of eager waves that pour
Around and over, leaping, parting, recalling?...
How near I moved (as day to same day wore)
And silently, beside the sea!
Thy hand my hand,
Thine eyes my eyes,
All of thee
Caught and confused with me:
My hand thy hand,
My eyes thine eyes,
All of me
Sunken and discovered anew in thee....
No: still
A foreign mind,
A thought
By other yet uncaught;
A secret will
Strange as the wind:
The heart of thee
Bewildering with strange fire the heart in me.
Hand touches hand,
Eye to eye beckons,
But who shall guess
Another's loneliness?
Though hand grasp hand,
Though the eye quickens,
Still lone as night
Remain thy spirit and mine, past touch and sight.
The earth is purple in the evening light,
The grass is graver green.
The gold among the meadows darker glows,
In the quieted air the blackbird sings more loud.
The sky has lost its rose —
Nothing more than this candle now shines bright.
Were there but natural night, how easy were
The putting-by of sense
At the day's end, and if no heavier air
Came o'er the mind in a thick-falling cloud.
But now there is no light
Within; and to this innocent night how dark my night!
The roaming sheep, forbidden to roam far,
Were stayed within the shadow of his eye.
The sheep-dog on that unseen shadow's edge
Moved, halted, barked, while the tall shepherd stood
Unmoving, leaned upon a sarsen stone,
Looking at the rain that curtained the bare hills
And drew the smoking curtain near and near! —
Tawny, bush-faced, with cloak and staff, and flask
And bright brass-ribb'd umbrella, standing stone
Against the veinless, senseless sarsen stone.
The Roman Road hard by, the green Ridge Way,
Not older seemed, nor calmer the long barrows
Of bones and memories of ancient days
Than the tall shepherd with his craft of days
Older than Roman or the oldest caveman,
When, in the generation of all living,
Sheep and kine flocked in the Aryan valley and
The first herd with his voice and skill of water
Fleetest of foot, led them into green pastures,
From perished pastures to new green. I saw
The herdsmen everywhere about the world,
And herdsmen of all time, fierce, lonely, wise,
Herds of Arabia and Syria
And Thessaly, and longer-winter'd climes;
And this lone herd, ages before England was,
Pelt-clad, and armed with flint-tipped ashen sap,
Watching his flocks, and those far flocks of stars
Slow moving as the heavenly shepherd willed
And at dawn shut into the sunny fold.
As a blue-necked mallard alighting in a pool
Among marsh-marigolds and splashing wet
Green leaves and yellow blooms, like jewels set
In bright, black mud, with clear drops crystal-cool,
Bringing keen savours of the sea and stir
Of windy spaces where wild sunsets flame
To that dark inland dyke, the thought of her
Into my brooding stagnant being came.
And all my senses quickened into life,
Tingling and glittering, and the salt and fire
Sang through my singing blood in eager strife
Until through crystal airs we seemed to be
Soaring together, one fleet-winged desire
Of windy sunsets and the wandering sea.
Somewhere, somewhen I've seen,
But where or when I'll never know,
Parrots of shrilly green
With crests of shriller scarlet flying
Out of black cedars as the sun was dying
Against cold peaks of snow.
From what forgotten life
Of other worlds I cannot tell
Flashes that screeching strife;
Yet the shrill colour and shrill crying
Sing through my blood and set my heart replying
And jangling like a bell.
In smoky lamplight of a Smyrna Café,
He saw them, seven solemn negroes dancing,
With faces rapt and out-thrust bellies prancing
In a slow solemn ceremonial cakewalk,
Dancing and prancing to the sombre tom-tom
Thumped by a crookbacked grizzled negro squatting.
And as he watched ... within the steamy twilight
Of swampy forest in rank greenness rotting,
That sombre tom-tom at his heartstrings strumming
Set all his sinews twitching, and a singing
Of cold fire through his blood — and he was dancing
Among his fellows in the dank green twilight
With naked, oiled, bronze-gleaming bodies swinging
In a rapt holy everlasting cakewalk
For evermore in slow procession prancing.
Black spars of driftwood burn to peacock flames,
Sea-emeralds and sea-purples and sea-blues,
And all the innumerable ever-changing hues
That haunt the changeless deeps but have no names,
Flicker and spire in our enchanted sight:
And as we gaze, the unsearchable mystery,
The unfathomed cold salt magic of the sea,
Shines clear before us in the quiet night.
We know the secret that Ulysses sought,
That moonstruck mariners since time began
Snatched at a drowning hazard — -strangely brought
To our homekeeping hearts in drifting spars
We chanced to kindle under the cold stars —
The secret in the ocean-heart of man.
Only the footprints of the partridge run
Over the billowy drifts on the mountain-side;
And now on level wings the brown birds glide
Following the snowy curves, and in the sun
Bright birds of gold above the stainless white
They move, and as the pale blue shadows move,
With them my heart glides on in golden flight
Over the hills of quiet to my love.
Storm-shaken, racked with terror through the long
Tempestuous night, in the quiet blue of morn
Love drinks the crystal airs, and peace newborn
Within his troubled heart, on wings aglow
Soars into rapture, as from the quiet snow
The golden birds; and out of silence, song.
Still bathed in its moonlight slumber, the little white house by the cedar
Stands silent against the red dawn;
And nothing I know of who sleeps there, to the travail of day yet unwakened,
Behind the blue curtains undrawn:
But I dream as we march down the roadway, ringing loud and white-rimed in the moonlight,
Of a little dark house on a hill
Wherein when the battle is over, to the rapture of day yet unwakened,
We shall slumber as dreamless and still.
Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
Beside the trickling stream.
One such to melt at the tongue's root,
Confounding taste with scent,
Beats a full peck of garden fruit:
Which points my argument.
May sudden justice overtake
And snap the froward pen,
That old and palsied poets shake
Against the minds of men;
Blasphemers trusting to hold caught
In far-flung webs of ink
The utmost ends of human thought,
Till nothing's left to think.
But may the gift of heavenly peace
And glory for all time
Keep the boy Tom who tending geese
First made the nursery rhyme.
By the brookside one August day,
Using the sun for clock,
Tom whiled the languid hours away
Beside his scattering flock,
Carving with a sharp pointed stone
On a broad slab of slate
The famous lives of Jumping Joan,
Dan Fox and Greedy Kate;
Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,
Spain, Scotland, Babylon,
That sister Kate might learn the words
To tell to Toddling John.
But Kate, who could not stay content
To learn her lesson pat,
New beauty to the rough lines lent
By changing this or that;
And she herself set fresh things down
In corners of her slate,
Of lambs and lanes and London Town.
God's blessing fall on Kate!
The baby loved the simple sound,
With jolly glee he shook,
And soon the lines grew smooth and round
Like pebbles in Tom's brook,
From mouth to mouth told and retold
By children sprawled at ease
Before the fire in winter's cold,
In June beneath tall trees;
Till though long lost are stone and slate,
Though the brook no more runs,
And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate,
Their sons and their sons' sons;
Yet, as when Time with stealthy tread
Lays the rich garden waste,
The woodland berry ripe and red
Fails not in scent or taste,
So these same rhymes shall still be told
To children yet unborn,
While false philosophy growing old
Fades and is killed by scorn.
Alice, dear, what ails you,
Dazed and white and shaken?
Has the chill night numbed you?
Is it fright you have taken?
Mother I am very well,
I felt never better;
Mother, do not hold me so,
Let me write my letter.
Sweet, my dear, what ails you?
No, but I am well.
The night was cold and frosty,
There's no more to tell.
Ay, the night was frosty,
Coldly gaped the moon,
Yet the birds seemed twittering
Through green boughs of June.
Soft and thick the snow lay,
Stars danced in the sky.
Not all the lambs of May-day
Skip so bold and high.
Your feet were dancing, Alice,
Seemed to dance on air,
You looked a ghost or angel
In the starlight there.
Your eyes were frosted starlight,
Your heart, fire, and snow.
Who was it said 'I love you?'
Mother, let me go!
Johnny, sweetheart, can you be true
To all those famous vows you've made?
Will you love me as I love you
Until we both in earth are laid?
Or shall the old wives nod and say
'His love was only for a day,
The mood goes by,
His fancies fly,
And Mary's left to sigh.'
Mary, alas, you've hit the truth,
And I with grief can but admit
Hot-blooded haste controls my youth,
My idle fancies veer and flit
From flower to flower, from tree to tree,
And when the moment catches me
Oh, love goes by,
Away I fly,
And leave my girl to sigh.
Could you but now foretell the day,
Johnny, when this sad thing must be,
When light and gay you'll turn away
And laugh and break the heart in me?
For like a nut for true love's sake
My empty heart shall crack and break,
When fancies fly
And love goes by
And Mary's left to die.
When the sun turns against the clock,
When Avon waters upward flow,
When eggs are laid by barn-door cock,
When dusty hens do strut and crow,
When up is down, when left is right,
Oh, then I'll break the troth I plight,
With careless eye
Away I'll fly
And Mary here shall die.
What's in that cupboard, Mary?
Which cupboard, mother dear?
The cupboard of red mahogany
With handles shining clear.
That cupboard, dearest mother,
With shining crystal handles?
There's nought inside but rags and jags
And yellow tallow candles.
What's in that cupboard, Mary?
Which cupboard, mother mine?
That cupboard stands in your sunny chamber,
The silver corners shine.
There's nothing there inside, mother,
But wool and thread and flax,
And bits of faded silk and velvet
And candles of white wax.
What's in that cupboard, Mary?
And this time tell me true.
White clothes for an unborn baby, mother..
But what's the truth to you?
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
The other birds woke all around;
Rising with toot and howl they stirred
Their plumage, broke the trembling sound,
They craned their necks, they fluttered wings,
'While we are silent no one sings,
And while we sing you hush your throat,
Or tune your melody to our note.'
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
The screams and hootings rose again:
They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred
Their noisy plumage; small but plain
The lonely hidden singer made
A well of grief within the glade.
'Whist, silly fool, be off,' they shout,
'Or we'll come pluck your feathers out.'
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
Slight and small the lovely cry
Came trickling down, but no one heard;
Parrot and cuckoo, crow, magpie,
Jarred horrid notes, the jangling jay
Ripped the fine threads of song away;
For why should peeping chick aspire
To challenge their loud woodland choir?
Cried it so sweet, that unseen bird?
Lovelier could no music be,
Clearer than water, soft as curd,
Fresh as the blossomed cherry tree.
How sang the others all around?
Piercing and harsh, a maddening sound,
With Pretty Poll, Tuwit-tuwoo
Peewit, Caw Caw, Cuckoo-Cuckoo.
How went the song, how looked the bird?
If I could tell, if I could show
With one quick phrase, one lightning word,
I'd learn you more than poets know;
For poets, could they only catch
Of that forgotten tune one snatch,
Would build it up in song or sonnet,
And found their whole life's fame upon it.
This is a wild land, country of my choice,
With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.
Seldom in these acres is heard any voice
But voice of cold water that runs here and there
Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.
No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry
For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.
He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings,
He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,
He catches the trembling of small hidden things,
He tears them in pieces dropping from the sky:
Tenderness and pity the land will deny,
Where life is but nourished from water and rock,
A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.
Time has never journeyed to this lost land,
Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,
The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand,
Careless if the season be early or late.
The skies wander overhead, now blue now slate:
Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow
If June did not borrow his armour also.
Yet this is my country beloved by me best,
The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood,
Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest,
Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood
Bold immortal country whose hill-tops have stood
Strongholds for the proud gods when on earth they go,
Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.
Since this is the last night I keep you home,
Come, I will consecrate you for the journey.
Rather I had you would not go. Nay come,
I will not again reproach you. Lie back
And let me love you a long time ere you go.
For you are sullen-hearted still, and lack
The will to love me. But even so
I will set a seal upon you from my lip,
Will set a guard of honour at each door,
Seal up each channel out of which might slip
Your love for me.
I kiss your mouth. Ah, love,
Could I but seal its ruddy, shining spring
Of passion, parch it up, destroy, remove
Its softly-stirring, crimson welling-up
Of kisses! Oh, help me, God! Here at the source
I'd lie for ever drinking and drawing in
Your fountains, as heaven drinks from out their course
The floods.
I close your ears with kisses
And seal your nostrils; and round your neck you'll wear —
Nay, let me work — a delicate chain of kisses.
Like beads they go around, and not one misses
To touch its fellow on either side.
And there
Full mid-between the champaign of your breast
I place a great and burning seal of love
Like a dark rose, a mystery of rest
On the slow bubbling of your rhythmic heart.
Nay, I persist, and very faith shall keep
You integral to me. Each door, each mystic port
Of egress from you I will seal and steep
In perfect chrism.
Now it is done. The mort
Will sound in heaven before it is undone.
But let me finish what I have begun
And shirt you now invulnerable in the mail
Of iron kisses, kisses linked like steel.
Put greaves upon your thighs and knees, and frail
Webbing of steel on your feet. So you shall feel
Ensheathed invulnerable with me, with seven
Great seals upon your outgoings, and woven
Chain of my mystic will wrapped perfectly
Upon you, wrapped in indomitable me.
| I | Fit for perpetual worship is the power That holds our bodies safely to the earth. When people talk of their domestic gods, Then privately I think of You. We ride through space upon your shoulders Conveniently and lightly set, And, so accustomed, we relax our hold, Forget the gentle motion of your body — But You do not forget. Sometimes you breathe a little faster, Or move a muscle: Then we remember you, O Master. |
| II | When people meet in reverent groups And sing to their domestic God, You, all the time, dear tyrant, (How I laugh!) Could, without effort, place your hand among them, And sprinkle them about the desert. But all your ways are carefully ordered, For you have never questioned duty. We watch your everlasting combinations; We call them Fate; we turn them to our pleasure, And when they most delight us, call them beauty. |
| III | I rest my body on your grass, And let my brain repose in you; I feel these living moments pass, And, from within myself to those far places To be imagined in your times and spaces, Deliberate the various acts you do: — Sorting and re-arranging worlds of Matter Keenly and wisely. Thus you brought our earth Through stages, and from purpose back to purpose, From fire to fog, to dust, to birth Through beast to man, who led himself to brain — Then you invoked him back to dust again. By leave of you he places stone on stone; He scatters seed: you are at once the prop Among the long roots of his fragile crop. You manufacture for him, and insure House, harvest, implement and furniture, And hold them all secure. |
| IV | The hill ... The trees ... From underneath I feel You pull me with your hand: Through my firm feet up to my heart You hold me, — You are in the land, Reposing underneath the hill. You keep my balance and my growth. I lift a foot, but where I go You follow: you, the ever-strong, Control the smallest thing I do. I have some little human power To turn your purpose to my end, For which I thank you every hour. I stand at worship, while you send Thrills up my body to my heart, And I am all in love to know How by your strength you keep me part Of earth, which cannot let me go; How everything I see around, Whether it can or cannot move, Is granted liberty of ground, And freedom to enjoy your love; Though you are silent always, and, alone To You yourself, your power remains unknown. |
They are the angels of that watery world,
With so much knowledge that they just aspire
To move themselves on golden fins,
Or fill their paradise with fire
By darting suddenly from end to end.
Glowing a thousand centuries behind
In pools half-recollected of the mind,
Their large eyes stare and stare, but do not see
Beyond those curtains of Eternity.
When twilight flows into the room
And air becomes like water, you can feel
Their movements growing larger in the gloom,
And you are led
Backward to where they live beyond the dead.
But in the morning, when the seven rays
Of London sunlight one by one incline,
They glide to meet them, and their gulping lips
Suck the light in, so they are caught and played
Like salmon on a heavenly fishing line.
* * * *
Ghosts on a twilight floor,
Moving about behind their watery door,
Breathing and yet not breathing day and night,
They give the house some gleam of faint delight.