One
instant I, an
instant, knew
As God knows all. And it and you
I, above Time, oh, blind! could see
In witless
mortal" target="_blank" title="a.不死的n.不朽的人物">
immortality.
I saw the
marble cup; the tea,
Hung on the air, an amber stream;
I saw the fire's unglittering gleam,
The painted flame, the
frozen smoke.
No more the flooding lamplight broke
On flying eyes and lips and hair;
But lay, but slept
unbroken there,
On stiller flesh, and body breathless,
And lips and
laughter stayed and deathless,
And words on which no silence grew.
Light was more alive than you.
For suddenly, and otherwhence,
I looked on your magnificence.
I saw the
stillness and the light,
And you,
august,
mortal" target="_blank" title="a.不死的n.不朽的人物">
immortal, white,
Holy and strange; and every glint
Posture and jest and thought and tint
Freed from the mask of transiency,
Triumphant in eternity,
Immote,
mortal" target="_blank" title="a.不死的n.不朽的人物">
immortal.
Dazed at length
Human eyes grew,
mortal strength
Wearied; and Time began to creep.
Change closed about me like a sleep.
Light glinted on the eyes I loved.
The cup was filled. The bodies moved.
The drifting petal came to ground.
The
laughter chimed its perfect round.
The broken
syllable was ended.
And I, so certain and so friended,
How could I cloud, or how distress,
The heaven of your unconsciousness?
Or shake at Time's sufficient spell,
Stammering of lights unutterable?
The
eternalholiness of you,
The timeless end, you never knew,
The peace that lay, the light that shone.
You never knew that I had gone
A million miles away, and stayed
A million years. The
laughter played
Unbroken round me; and the jest
Flashed on. And we that knew the best
Down wonderful hours grew happier yet.
I sang at heart, and talked, and eat,
And lived from laugh to laugh, I too,
When you were there, and you, and you.
The Goddess in the Wood
In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,
Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one
Far golden horn in the gold of trees and sun
Rang out; and held; and died. . . . She thought the wood
Grew quieter. Wing, and leaf, and pool of light
Forgot to dance. Dumb lay the unfalling stream;
Life one
eternalinstant rose in dream
Clear out of time, poised on a golden
height. . . .
Till a swift
terror broke the
abrupt hour.
The gold waves purled
amidst the green above her;
And a bird sang. With one sharp-taken breath,
By sunlit branches and unshaken flower,
The
mortal" target="_blank" title="a.不死的n.不朽的人物">
immortal limbs flashed to the human lover,
And the
mortal" target="_blank" title="a.不死的n.不朽的人物">
immortal eyes to look on death.
A Channel Passage
The
damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick
My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew
I must think hard of something, or be sick;
And could think hard of only one thing -- YOU!
You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!
And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.
Now there's a choice -- heartache or tortured liver!
A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!
Do I forget you? Retchings twist and tie me,
Old meat, good meals, brown gobbets, up I throw.
Do I remember? Acrid return and slimy,
The sobs and slobber of a last years woe.
And still the sick ship rolls. 'Tis hard, I tell ye,
To choose 'twixt love and nausea, heart and belly.
Victory
All night the ways of Heaven were desolate,
Long roads across a gleaming empty sky.
Outcast and doomed and
driven, you and I,
Alone,
serene beyond all love or hate,
Terror or
triumph, were content to wait,
We, silent and all-
knowing. Suddenly
Swept through the heaven low-crouching from on high,
One
horseman,
downward to the earth's low gate.
Oh, perfect from the
ultimateheight of living,
Lightly we turned, through wet woods blossom-hung,
Into the open. Down the supernal roads,
With plumes a-tossing,
purple flags far flung,
Rank upon rank, unbridled, unforgiving,
Thundered the black battalions of the Gods.
Day and Night
Through my heart's palace Thoughts unnumbered throng;
And there, most quiet and, as a child, most wise,
High-
throned you sit, and
gracious. All day long
Great Hopes gold-armoured,
jester Fantasies,
And
pilgrim Dreams, and little
beggar Sighs,
Bow to your benediction, go their way.
And the grave jewelled
courtier Memories
Worship and love and tend you, all the day.
But when I sleep, and all my thoughts go straying,
When the high
session of the day is ended,
And darkness comes; then, with the waning light,
By lilied maidens on your way attended,
Proud from the wonted
throne, superbly swaying,
You, like a queen, pass out into the night.
Experiments
Choriambics -- I
Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring
Light-foot dance in the woods,
whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring;
Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons,
and good friends call,
Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the best of all,
Love, on
myriad lips fairer than yours, kisses you could not give! . . .
Dearest, why should I mourn,
whimper, and whine, I that have yet to live?
Sorrow will I forget, tears for the best, love on the lips of you,
Now, when dawn in the blood wakes, and the sun laughs up the eastern blue;
I'll forget and be glad!
Only at length, dear, when the great day ends,
When love dies with the last light, and the last song has been sung,
and friends
All are perished, and gloom strides on the heaven: then, as alone I lie,
'Mid Death's
gathering winds, frightened and dumb, sick for the past, may I
Feel you suddenly there, cool at my brow; then may I hear the peace
Of your voice at the last,
whispering love,
calling, ere all can cease
In the silence of death; then may I see dimly, and know, a space,
Bending over me, last light in the dark, once, as of old, your face.
Choriambics -- II
Here the flame that was ash,
shrine that was void,
lost in the
haunted wood,
I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude
Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark,
knowing that once a gleam
Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,
Unrecaptured.
For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance
One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance
Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,
End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit
The flame, burning apart.
Face of my dreams
vainly in
vision white
Gleaming down to me, lo!
hopeless I rise now. For about midnight
Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above
Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the
sacred grove
Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.
I knew
Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you
Somewhere lay, as a child
sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,
White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,
God,
mortal" target="_blank" title="a.不死的n.不朽的人物">
immortal and dead!
Therefore I go; never to rest, or win
Peace, and
worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the
shrine therein.
Desertion
So light we were, so right we were, so fair faith shone,
And the way was laid so certainly, that, when I'd gone,
What dumb thing looked up at you? Was it something heard,
Or a sudden cry, that
meekly and without a word
You broke the faith, and
strangely, weakly, slipped apart.
You gave in -- you, the proud of heart, unbowed of heart!
Was this, friend, the end of all that we could do?
And have you found the best for you, the rest for you?
Did you learn so suddenly (and I not by!)
Some
whispered story, that stole the glory from the sky,
And ended all the splendid dream, and made you go
So dully from the fight we know, the light we know?
O faithless! the faith remains, and I must pass
Gay down the way, and on alone. Under the grass
You wait; the
breeze moves in the trees, and stirs, and calls,
And covers you with white petals, with light petals.
There it shall
crumble, frail and fair, under the sun,
O little heart, your brittle heart; till day be done,
And the shadows gather, falling light, and, white with dew,
Whisper, and weep; and creep to you. Good sleep to you!
1914
I. Peace
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from
sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found
release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
II. Safety
Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, `Who is so safe as we?'
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.