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The mind of the people is like mud,From which arise strange and beautiful things,But mud is none the less mud,Though it bear orchids and prophesying Kings,Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings.It has found form and colour and light,The cold glimmer of the ice-wrapped Poles;It has called a far-off glow Arcturus,And some pale weeds, lilies of the valley.It has imagined Virgil, Helen and Cassandra;The sack of Troy, and the weeping for Hector —Rearing stark up 'mid all this beautyIn the thick, dull neck of Ajax.There is a dark Pine in Lapland,And the great, figured Horn of the Reindeer,Moving soundlessly across the snow,Is its twin brother, double-dreamed,In the mind of a far-off people.It is strange that a little mudShould echo with sounds, syllables, and letters,Should rise up and call a mountain Popocatapetl,And a green-leafed wood Oleander.These are the ghosts of invisible things;There is no Lapland, no Helen and no Hector,And the Reindeer is a darkening of the brain,And Oleander is but Oleander.Mary Magdalena and the vine Lachryma ChristiWere like ghosts up the ghost of Vesuvius,As I sat and drank wine with the soldiers,As I sat in the Inn on the mountain,Watching the shadows in my mind.The mind of the people is like mud,Where are the imperishable things,The ghosts that flicker in the brain —Silent women, orchids, and prophesying Kings,Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings!
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Gently, sorrowfully sang the maidSowing the ploughed field over,And her song was only:'Come, O my lover!'Strangely, strangely shone the light,Stilly wound the river:'Thy love is a dead man,He'll come back never.'Sadly, sadly passed the maidThe fading dark hills over;Still her song far, far away said:'Come, O my lover!'
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The stone-grey roses by the desert's rimAre soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand,Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar,That haunt of nightingales, whose voices areFountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon.Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feetEntering the vanished gardens sniff the air —Some scent may linger of that ancient time,Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme,The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there.A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow,In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun,With long dark lashes and small delicate hands:All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouthUntil they buried her in shifting sand.And the Gazelles shall flit by in the MoonAnd never shake the frail Tree's lightest leaves,And moonlight roses perfume the pale DawnUntil the scarlet life that left her lipsGathers its shattered beauty in the sky.
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In low chalk hills the great King's body lay,And bright streams fell, tinkling like polished tin,As though they carried off his armoury,And spread it glinting through his wide domain.Old bearded soldiers sat and gazed dim-eyedAt the strange brightness flowing under trees,And saw his sword flashing in ancient battles,And drank, and swore, and trembled helplessly.And bright-haired maidens dipped their cold white arms,And drew them glittering colder, whiter, still;The sky sparkled like the dead King's blue eyeUpon the sentries that were dead as trees.His shining shield lay in an old grey town,And white swans sailed so still and dreamfully,They seemed the thoughts of those white, peaceful hillsMirrored that day within his glazing eyes.And in the square the pale cool butter sold,Cropped from the daisies sprinkled on the downs,And old wives cried their wares, like queer day owls,Piercing the old men's sad and foolish dreams.And Time flowed on till all the realm forgotThe great King lying in the low chalk hills;Only the busy water dripping throughHis hard white bones knew of him lying there.
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When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieveAs I grieved for my brother long ago.Scarce did my eyes grow dim,I had forgotten him;I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow,And many summers burnedWhen, though still reeling with my eyes aflame,I heard that faded nameWhispered one Spring amid the hurrying worldFrom which, years gone, he turned.I looked up at my windows and I sawThe trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon.The air was very stillAbove a distant hill;It was the hour of night's full silver moon.'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried;And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept,As my heart sadly creptAbout the empty hills, bathed in that lightThat lapped him when he died.Ah! it was cold, so cold; do I not knowHow dead my heart on that remembered day!Clear in a far-away placeI see his delicate faceJust as he called me from my solitary play,Giving into my hands a tiny tree.We planted it in the dark, blossomless groundGravely, without a sound;Then back I went and left him standing byHis birthday gift to me.In that far land perchance it quietly growsDrinking the rain, making a pleasant shade;Birds in its branches flyOut of the fathomless skyWhere worlds of circling light arise and fade.Blindly it quivers in the bright flood of day,Or drowned in multitudinous shouts of rainGlooms o'er the dark-veiled plain —Buried below, the ghost that's in his bonesDreams in the sodden clay.And, while he faded, drunk with beauty's eyesI kissed bright girls and laughed deep in dumb trees,That stared fixt in the airLike madmen in despairGaped up from earth with the escaping breeze.I saw earth's exaltation slowly creepOut of their myriad sky-embracing veins.I laughed along the lanes,Meeting Death riding in from the hollow seasThrough black-wreathed woods asleep.I laughed, I swaggered on the cold hard ground —Through the grey air trembled a falling wave —'Thou'rt pale, O Death!' I cried,Mocking him in my pride;And passing I dreamed not of that lonely grave,But of leaf-maidens whose pale, moon-like handsAbove the tree-foam waved in the icy air,Sweeping with shining hairThrough the green-tinted sky, one moment fledOut of immortal lands.One windless Autumn night the Moon came outIn a white sea of cloud, a field of snow;In darkness shaped of trees,I sank upon my kneesAnd watched her shining, from the small wood below —Faintly Death flickered in an owl's far cry — -We floated soundless in the great gulf of space,Her light upon my face —Immortal, shining in that dark wood I kneltAnd knew I could not die.And knew I could not die — O Death, didst thouHeed my vain glory, standing pale by thy dead?There is a spirit who grievesAmid earth's dying leaves;Was't thou that wept beside my brother's bed?For I did never mourn nor heed at allHim passing on his temporal elm-wood bier;I never shed a tear.The drooping sky spread grey-winged through my soul,While stones and earth did fall.That sound rings down the years — I hear it yet —All earthly life's a winding funeral —And though I never wept,But into the dark coach stept,Dreaming by night to answer the blood's sweet call,She who stood there, high-breasted, with small, wise lips,And gave me wine to drink and bread to eat,Has not more steadfast feet,But fades from my arms as fade from mariners' eyesThe sea's most beauteous ships.The trees and hills of earth were once as closeAs my own brother, they are becoming dreamsAnd shadows in my eyes;More dimly liesGuaya deep in my soul, the coastline gleamsFaintly along the darkening crystalline seas.Glimmering and lovely still, 'twill one day go;The surging dark will flowOver my hopes and joys, and blot out allEarth's hills and skies and trees.I shall look up one night and see the MoonFor the last time shining above the hills,And thou, silent, wilt rideOver the dark hillside.'Twill be, perchance, the time of daffodils —'How come those bright immortals in the woods?Their joy being young, didst thou not drag them allInto dark graves ere Fall?'Shall life thus haunt me, wondering, as I goTo thy deep solitudes?There is a figure with a down-turned torchCarved on a pillar in an olden time,A calm and lovely boyWho comes not to destroyBut to lead age back to its golden prime.Thus did an antique sculptor draw thee, Death,With smooth and beauteous brow and faint sweet smile,Not haggard, gaunt and vile,And thou perhaps art thus to whom men may,Unvexed, give up their breath.But in my soul thou sittest like a dreamAmong earth's mountains, by her dim-coloured seas;A wild unearthly ShapeIn thy dark-glimmering cape,Piping a tune of wavering melodies,Thou sittest, ay, thou sittest at the feastOf my brief life among earth's bright-wreathed flowers,Staining the dancing hoursWith sombre gleams until, abrupt, thou risestAnd all, at once, is ceased.
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The Bibliography for this volume will be available soon, in an updated version of this file which will replace the current file on Project Gutenberg.
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