And one remembers. . . .
Ah! the beat
Of weary unreturning feet,
And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
The fires we left are always burning
On the old
shrines of home. Our kin
Have built them temples, and therein
Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell
In little houses lovable,
Being happy (we remember how!)
And
peaceful even to death. . . .
O Thou,
God of all long
desirous roaming,
Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,
And crying after lost desire.
Hearten us onward! as with fire
Consuming dreams of other bliss.
The best Thou givest, giving this
Sufficient thing -- to travel still
Over the plain, beyond the hill,
Unhesitating through the shade,
Amid the silence unafraid,
Till, at some sudden turn, one sees
Against the black and muttering trees
Thine altar,
wonderfully white,
Among the Forests of the Night.
The Song of the Beasts
(Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)
Come away! Come away!
Ye are sober and dull through the common day,
But now it is night!
It is
shameful night, and God is asleep!
(Have you not felt the quick fires that creep
Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,
And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).
The house is dumb;
The night calls out to you. Come, ah, come!
Down the dim stairs, through the creaking door,
Naked, crawling on hands and feet
-- It is meet! it is meet!
Ye are men no longer, but less and more,
Beast and God. . . . Down the lampless street,
By little black ways, and secret places,
In the darkness and mire,
Faint
laughter around, and evil faces
By the star-glint seen -- ah! follow with us!
For the darkness whispers a blind desire,
And the fingers of night are amorous.
Keep close as we speed,
Though mad whispers woo you, and hot hands cling,
And the touch and the smell of bare flesh sting,
Soft flank by your flank, and side brushing side --
TO-NIGHT never heed!
Unswerving and silent follow with me,
Till the city ends sheer,
And the crook'd lanes open wide,
Out of the voices of night,
Beyond lust and fear,
To the level waters of moonlight,
To the level waters, quiet and clear,
To the black unresting plains of the
calling sea.
Failure
Because God put His adamantine fate
Between my
sullen heart and its desire,
I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,
Rise up, and curse Him on His
throne of fire.
Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,
But Love was as a flame about my feet;
Proud up the Golden Stair I
strode; and beat
Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry --
All the great courts were quiet in the sun,
And full of
vacant echoes: moss had grown
Over the
glassypavement, and begun
To creep within the dusty council-halls.
An idle wind blew round an empty
throneAnd stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.
Ante Aram
Before thy
shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper,
Chanting strange hymns to thee and
sorrowful litanies,
Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh.
Ah,
goddess, on thy
throne of tears and faint low sighs,
Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err,
And empty hearts grown tired of the world's vanities.
How fair this cool deep silence to a wanderer
Deaf with the roar of winds along the open skies!
Sweet, after sting and bitter kiss of sea-water,
The pale Lethean wine within thy chalices!
I come before thee, I, too tired wanderer,
To heed the
horror of the
shrine, the distant cries,
And evil whispers in the gloom, or the swift whirr
Of terrible wings -- I, least of all thy votaries,
With a faint hope to see the scented darkness stir,
And,
parting, frame within its quiet mysteries
One face, with lips than autumn-lilies tenderer,
And voice more sweet than the far plaint of viols is,
Or the soft moan of any grey-eyed lute-player.
Dawn
(From the train between Bologna and Milan, second class.)
Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat.
Through
sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar.
We have been here for ever: even yet
A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more.
The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet
With a night's foetor. There are two hours more;
Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours yet.
Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore. . . .
One of them wakes, and spits, and sleeps again.
The darkness shivers. A wan light through the rain
Strikes on our faces, drawn and white. Somewhere
A new day sprawls; and, inside, the foul air
Is chill, and damp, and fouler than before. . . .
Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore.
The Call
Out of the nothingness of sleep,
The slow dreams of Eternity,
There was a
thunder on the deep:
I came, because you called to me.
I broke the Night's primeval bars,
I dared the old abysmal curse,
And flashed through ranks of frightened stars
Suddenly on the universe!
The
eternal silences were broken;
Hell became Heaven as I passed. --
What shall I give you as a token,
A sign that we have met, at last?
I'll break and forge the stars anew,
Shatter the heavens with a song;
Immortal in my love for you,
Because I love you, very strong.
Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,
Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,
I'll write upon the shrinking skies
The
scarlet splendour of your name,
Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder
Dies in her
ultimate mad fire,
And darkness falls, with
scornfulthunder,
On dreams of men and men's desire.
Then only in the empty spaces,
Death, walking very silently,
Shall fear the glory of our faces
Through all the dark infinity.
So, clothed about with perfect love,
The
eternal end shall find us one,
Alone above the Night, above
The dust of the dead gods, alone.
The Wayfarers
Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place
Made fair by one another for a while.
Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;
The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.
Ah! the long road! and you so far away!
Oh, I'll remember! but . . . each crawling day
Will pale a little your
scarlet lips, each mile
Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.
. . . Do you think there's a far border town, somewhere,
The desert's edge, last of the lands we know,
Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,
In which I'll find you
waiting; and we'll go
Together, hand in hand again, out there,
Into the waste we know not, into the night?
The Beginning
Some day I shall rise and leave my friends
And seek you again through the world's far ends,
You whom I found so fair
(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),
My only god in the days that were.
My eager feet shall find you again,
Though the
sullen years and the mark of pain
Have changed you
wholly; for I shall know
(How could I forget having loved you so?),
In the sad half-light of evening,
The face that was all my sunrising.
So then at the ends of the earth I'll stand
And hold you
fiercely by either hand,
And
seeing your age and ashen hair
I'll curse the thing that once you were,
Because it is changed and pale and old
(Lips that were
scarlet, hair that was gold!),
And I loved you before you were old and wise,
When the flame of youth was strong in your eyes,
-- And my heart is sick with memories.
1908-1911
Sonnet: "Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire"
Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and
loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There,
waiting patiently,
One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,
And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly
ponder, start, and sway, and gleam --
Most individual and bewildering ghost! --
And turn, and toss your brown
delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.
Sonnet: "I said I
splendidly loved you; it's not true"
I said I
splendidly loved you; it's not true.
Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.
On gods or fools the high risk falls -- on you --