So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,
Is
haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,
Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,
Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,
And light on waving grass, he knows not when,
And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.
The Pacific, 1914
Sonnet (Suggested by some of the Proceedings
of the Society for Psychical Research)
Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun,
We'll beat on the
substantial doors, nor tread
Those dusty high-roads of the
aimless dead
Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run
Down some close-covered by-way of the air,
Some low sweet alley between wind and wind,
Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find
Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there
Spend in pure
converse our
eternal day;
Think each in each, immediately wise;
Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say
What this
tumultuous body now denies;
And feel, who have laid our groping hands away;
And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.
Clouds
Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless
tumult, break and wave and flow,
Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow
Up to the white moon's
hidden loveliness.
Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,
And turn with
profoundgesture vague and slow,
As who would pray good for the world, but know
Their benediction empty as they bless.
They say that the Dead die not, but remain
Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.
I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,
In wise
majesticmelancholy train,
And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,
And men, coming and going on the earth.
The Pacific, October 1913
Mutability
They say there's a high windless world and strange,
Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,
Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,
`Aeterna corpora', subject to no change.
There the sure suns of these pale shadows move;
There stand the
immortal ensigns of our war;
Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star,
And perishing hearts, imperishable Love. . . .
Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;
Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;
Love has no
habitation but the heart.
Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,
Cling, and are borne into the night apart.
The laugh dies with the lips, `Love' with the lover.
South Kensington -- Makaweli, 1913
Other Poems
The Busy Heart
Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
And Song's
nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
Lovely and
durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude.
Love
Love is a
breach in the walls, a broken gate,
Where that comes in that shall not go again;
Love sells the proud heart's
citadel to Fate.
They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then,
When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking,
And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying
Of
credulous hearts, in heaven -- such are but taking
Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying
Each in his
lonely night, each with a ghost.
Some share that night. But they know love grows colder,
Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most.
Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder,
But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss.
All this is love; and all love is but this.
Unfortunate
Heart, you are
restless as a paper scrap
That's tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;
Saying, "She is most wise, patient and kind.
Between the small hands folded in her lap
Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,
And find
forgiveness where the shadows stir
About her lips, and
wisdom in her strength,
Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!" . . .
She will not care. She'll smile to see me come,
So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.
She'll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,
And open wide upon that holy air
The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,
Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.
The Chilterns
Your hands, my dear, adorable,
Your lips of tenderness
-- Oh, I've loved you
faithfully and well,
Three years, or a bit less.
It wasn't a success.
Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
As a free man may do.
For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
Forgotten at the last;
Even Love goes past.
What's left behind I shall not find,
The splendour and the pain;
The
splash of sun, the shouting wind,
And the brave sting of rain,
I may not meet again.
But the years, that take the best away,
Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
For none to mar or mend,
That have themselves to friend.
I shall desire and I shall find
The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the
mellow wind
That soothes the darkening shires.
And
laughter, and inn-fires.
White mist about the black hedgerows,
The slumbering Midland plain,
The silence where the
clover grows,
And the dead leaves in the lane,
Certainly, these remain.
And I shall find some girl perhaps,
And a better one than you,
With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
And lips as soft, but true.
And I daresay she will do.
Home
I came back late and tired last night
Into my little room,
To the long chair and the firelight
And comfortable gloom.
But as I entered
softly in
I saw a woman there,
The line of neck and cheek and chin,
The darkness of her hair,
The form of one I did not know
Sitting in my chair.
I stood a moment
fierce and still,
Watching her neck and hair.
I made a step to her; and saw
That there was no one there.
It was some trick of the firelight
That made me see her there.
It was a chance of shade and light
And the
cushion in the chair.
Oh, all you happy over the earth,
That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the
lonely gloom;
And watched the
moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room,
All night I could not sleep.
The Night Journey
Hands and lit faces eddy to a line;
The dazed last minutes click; the clamour dies.
Beyond the great-swung arc o' the roof, divine,
Night, smoky-scarv'd, with thousand coloured eyes
Glares the
imperiousmystery of the way.
Thirsty for dark, you feel the long-limbed train
Throb, stretch,
thrillmotion, slide, pull out and sway,
Strain for the far, pause, draw to strength again. . . .
As a man, caught by some great hour, will rise,
Slow-limbed, to meet the light or find his love;
And, breathing long, with staring sightless eyes,
Hands out, head back, agape and silent, move
Sure as a flood, smooth as a vast wind blowing;
And,
gathering power and purpose as he goes,
Unstumbling, unreluctant, strong, unknowing,
Borne by a will not his, that lifts, that grows,
Sweep out to darkness, triumphing in his goal,
Out of the fire, out of the little room. . . .
-- There is an end appointed, O my soul!
Crimson and green the signals burn; the gloom
Is hung with steam's far-blowing livid streamers.
Lost into God, as lights in light, we fly,
Grown one with will, end-drunken huddled dreamers.
The white lights roar. The sounds of the world die.
And lips and
laughter are forgotten things.
Speed sharpens; grows. Into the night, and on,
The strength and splendour of our purpose swings.
The lamps fade; and the stars. We are alone.
Song
All suddenly the wind comes soft,
And Spring is here again;
And the
hawthorn quickens with buds of green,
And my heart with buds of pain.