Collected Poems (14 page)

When I have sung the sweet songs and the sad,

The songs of magic drifting from above,

The trumpet songs that shout across men’s souls,

The sleep-song, breasted softer than the dove,

Still there will be one song I have not sung —

               The song you love, the song you love.

What are the torches of the world to you,

The words that comfort men and calm their fears?

What are the stars with their strange harmonies,

Or fate that shadows all, or death that jeers?

There must be laughter in the song you love

               And at the end there must be tears.

When I have come to that green place we know

Where cedars stand that have no faith in spring,

Where through the utter peace of afternoon

The mocking-birds their heartless raptures fling,

Long after it is dust, one heart there’ll be

               Restless with words it could not sing.

I sometimes think Thou art my secret love;

But not to-night.… To-night I have the need

Of human tenderness; not hovering wings,

But one warm breast where I may lay my head

And close my eyes. For I am tired to-night.…

The park was full of lovers,

And such a slender moon looked down on them.…

For one kiss of one mouth, free-given, I

Would give — what’s left of me to-night

To the last dream!

Art Thou a jealous god?

Dost think to force by loneliness

Unwilling love to Thee?

Beware, beware! The winds of madness blow

Strong, strong on nights like these! …

Thou dost deny me what’s of life most sweet,

The bending head and lovely eyes of love —

Then give, beseech Thee, give me sleep.

Drifting, groping

For delight;

Longing, hoping

All the night.

Perfume of

Blossomed hair —

Where is love?

Ah, no, not there! …

Not there.

Turning, turning,

Sleepless-eyed,

Something burning

At my side —

Winds that sweep

Poppied hair,

Where is sleep?

Ah, no, not there! …

Not there?

I have a need of silence and of stars;

Too much is said too loudly; I am dazed.

The silken sound of whirled infinity

Is lost in voices shouting to be heard.

I once knew men as earnest and less shrill.

An undermeaning that I caught I miss

Among these ears that hear all sounds save silence,

These eyes that see so much but not the sky,

These minds that gain all knowledge but no calm.

If suddenly the desperate music ceased,

Could they return to life? or would they stand

In dancers’ attitudes, puzzled, polite,

And striking vaguely hand on tired hand

For an encore, to fill the ghastly pause?

I do not know. Some rhythm there may be

I cannot hear. But I — oh, I must go

Back where the breakers of deep sunlight roll

Across flat fields that love and touch the sky;

Back to the more of earth, the less of man,

Where there is still a plain simplicity,

And friendship, poor in everything but love,

And faith, unwise, unquestioned, but a star.

Soon now the peace of summer will be there

With cloudy fire of myrtles in full bloom;

And, when the marvelous wide evenings come,

Across the molten river one can see

The misty willow-green of Arcady.

And then — the summer stars … I will go home.

I have grown weary of the open sea,

The chartless ways, the storms, the loneliness,

The coast that topples, tall and shelterless —

Weary of faring where all things are free!

Yet once the open sea was all romance,

Purple and olive-stained and golden-scaled;

And every breeze from some adventure hailed,

And shoals were silver for the moon to dance.

The cliffs were only tall to keep untrod

The kingdom of the fay hung high in air,

And every storm was but Poseidon’s dare,

And brave it was to battle with a god.

Ah, blithe it was when the mad night was done

And day with flying hair woke wild and white,

To see the salty sail loom in the light

And know one battle more was bravely won.

Then these were magic seas that ever rang

With melodies, now wild, now sweet, now glad;

At dusk the drifting choirs unseen were sad

And in the lulls of night the sirens sang.

They sing no more; the colors now are grey;

The cliffs defend not fairyland, but home;

And when th’ impenitent, hoar sea has clomb

The clouds, I have no heart to sing or pray.

Oh, I am weary of the open sea,

Vigils and storms and watches without name,

The ache of long resistance without aim,

The fetters of the fetterless and free.

There is some haven that no tempest mars,

Some brown-hilled harbor, hushed and clear and deep,

Where tired evening may sit down and weep,

And, waking, find not water there but stars.

There would I creep at last ere day is done,

With ashen sail dropped down and cordage white;

There rest secure, there find before the night

A little hour of peace, a little sun!

“Soldier, knowest thou the land

    The land that’s home to thee?”

“Stranger, with the voice not strange,

    Why do you lean to me,

A wounded man, and put a word

    That mocks my memory?”

“Soldier, I am from that land,

    The land that’s home to thee.”

“O stranger with the gentle hands,

    Now let your pity be.

You have no word what land is mine,

    Your closed eyes cannot see

As mine, as mine, the land of lands,

    The land where I would be.”

“I see a field of apple trees

    That top a furrowed hill,

A little house, a little room,

    A flowered window sill.

A woman with a face like thine,

    But eyes more sweet and still,

Who prays across the gathered dusk

    To guard her child from ill.”

“My God, my God, I fear to look

    Lest there be no man by!

If this be but a fever dream

    O let me sleep and die

And never know a blessed ghost

    From home had heard my cry.”

“See me, touch me, let thy head

    On my bosom weigh.

This, the kiss your mother sent,

    That on your lips I lay.”

“Yes — it is hers — no other drives

    The awful pain away —

I think — that I could fall asleep —

    If you — would only — stay.”

“Rest thee, rest thee on my breast,

    Let the deep sleep come.

Rest thee, rest thee, soldier lad,

    Time is past to roam.

Waking, I shall still be near,

    And we shall be at home.”

There was a knight once rode from out the sun

Into a twilight wood, forever still.

It was a place for blue-eyed knights to shun,

For such are liefer to enchantments ill.

Deep in the wood he rode with head bent low …

There was no sound save tired leaves that fell.

His lance hung listless from his saddle bow;

Pale was his armor; pale his mouth as well.

The old adventures and the knightly bouts

Seemed faint and far as shapes in fever seen.

Because his dreams had died, but not his doubts,

His eyes were grey that had been blue, I ween.

But whether he that haunted wood passed through,

Or came unto the marsh, I never knew.

The shining moments are so far between!

From their clear crests we see the dawn unfurled

In films of opal on the dew-drenched world —

Life, life, dædal, harmonious, serene!

Then darkness. For that aërial wide scene,

Tempests down mountain by-paths madly hurled;

This way and that our tortured souls are whirled,

Blinded, aghast, beneath the lightning’s green.

The peaks are moments; lifelong lasts the dark.

Yet, soul, be strong! Thou hast beheld the sun,

Hast known that life is wisdom and is one.

Stanch thy despair! The cloud-rack thou dost mark

May hide a crest whereto thy wanderings bend.

And this, too, ends. There is a certain end.

(
THANKING HIM FOR A COPY OF “THE TEMPEST
”)

My thanks, dear friend, as always! But, I fear

No art — not Prospero’s — can speak to me

As those swift words you breathed first in my ear.

They were your heart; this but your wizardry.

We have lived much, won much, and now are old.

Strange, is it not, when I call in review

My life’s achievements, dross and drab and gold,

There’s nothing shines but took its light from you?

And yet, as I reread our book to-night,

And trembled almost at some old-loved line,

I wondered if the world, so prone to slight,

Would some day slur your stainless name with mine,

Not knowing there is ice in heavenly flame,

And Friendship is Love’s canonizèd name.

How has November won

    More loveliness

With opal mist and sun

    Than spring can boast?

The village houses all

    Wear aureoles.

Their smoke is pale and tall

    As Abel’s was.

The winds adoringly

    On tiptoe pause,

Nor grudge the branches free

    Slow gift of leaves.

And on the air one note

    Clear, clear, and sad,

From the unmated throat

    Of some lone bird.

O earth, that doth confess

    In beauty God,

How calm the happiness,

    How close the tears!

Whose blood runs gay as summer’s,

Whose heart is sure and proud,

Whose days are all newcomers,

Whose nights are dream-endowed, —

Pass on, lest you should hear

Speech neither sweet nor clear.

Whose blood is slowly spilling,

Whose heart has crimson scars,

Whose days have lost their thrilling,

Whose nights have lost their stars —

Pause here and you will find

One of your kith and kind.

You cannot choose but love, lad,

From dawn till twilight dreary;

You cannot choose but love, lad,

Though love grows weary, weary.

For, lad, an if you love not,

You’d best have slept, unwaking;

But, O, an if you love, lad,

Your heart is breaking, breaking.

Though friends and lovers only

Fill life with joyous breath,

Yet friend or lover only

Can make you pray for death.

Throw open wide your heart then,

Love’s road-house for a mile!

And if one turns to leave you

Or stab you — smile, lad, smile.

Some are fed on kingly fare,

    Some starve, as fate decrees;

Of those death takes away the soul,

    The body takes of these.

I would not have my soul to die;

    Too soon corruption comes.

But two deaths I had rather die,

    Than live and live on crumbs.

There is a banquet table set

    Within a silver gate

Where lads and maidens lightly feast —

    Outside the beggars wait.

Oh, starve me, food and drink denied,

    Or gorge till soul succumbs,

But I’ll not live as beggars do —

    Feed me not, Love, on crumbs.

Though you have struck me to the bloody core,

It is indeed only one scar the more!

And I’ll not turn from you as at the other strokes,

Nor say “Good-bye,” as other times I said.

               The agony still chokes,

And still it seems most restful to be dead.

But I’ll not say “Good-bye” nor turn away,

               Nor parting lover play.…

Leave you? Take everything save all — my heart?

I know the scene too well, too well my part!

Hot tears and bitterness; and I would go,

Go for an hour, a day, a week —

Is bitterness so short called pique?

And in the old, old way, without regret

               I would return to you;

And in the old, old way you would forget

               That ever I had gone, and let

                         Some casual tenderness

                         Be my return’s caress;

Or in some vague, absorbed distress,

Lift up your shadow eyes to mine still wet.

Sleep, brown-eyed, sleep.

’Tis but the winds that weep,

Telling from tree to tree

Their ancient misery.

’Tis but the winds that weep.

    Sleep.… Sleep.

’Tis but the touch of dreams

Upon your mouth that seems

Like groping kisses … Sleep!

    ’Tis but the dreams …

And, oh, ’tis but the dew

So bitter tastes to you,

Falling the long night through,

Falling on lips untrue —

    The dew, only the dew.