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As I went down the Baldon lane,Alone I went, as oft I went,Weighing if it were loss or gainTo give a maidenhead.I met, just as the day was spent,A fancy man, a gentleman,Who smiled on me, and then began,'Come sit with me, my maid.'With him had I no mind to sitIn Baldon lane for loss or gain,Said I to him with feeble wit,And close beside him crept;The branches might have heard my pain,The sudden cry, the maiden cry, —My fancy man departed sly,And woman-like, I wept.I kept the roads until my bed,A nine months' time, a weary time,And then to Baldon woods I fledIn Spring-time weather mild;The kindly trees, they fear no crime,So back I came, to Baldon came,Received their welcome without blame,And moaned and dropped my child.The poor brat gasped an hour or so,A goodly child, a thoughtful child;Perceiving nought for us but woeIt stretched and sudden died;But I, when Spring breaks fresh and mild,To Baldon lane return again,For there's my home, and women vainMust hold their homes in pride.
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Come girl, and embraceAnd ask no more I wed thee;Know then you are sweet of face,Soft-limbed and fashioned lovingly; —Must you go marketing your charmsIn cunning woman-like,And filled with old wives' tales' alarms?I tell you, girl, come embrace;What reck we of churchling and priestWith hands on paunch, and chubby face?Behold, we are life's pitiful least,And we perish at the first smellOf death, whither heaves earthTo spurn us cringing into hell.Come girl, and embrace;Nay, cry not, poor wretch, nor plead,But haste, for life strikes a swift pace,And I burn with envious greed:Know you not, fool, we are the mockOf gods, time, clothes, and priests?But come, there is no time for talk.
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(a fragment)
So she became a bird, and bird-like dancedOn a long sloe-bough, treading the silver blossomWith a bird's lovely feet;And shaken blossoms fell into the handsOf Sunlight. And he held them for a momentAnd let them drop.And in the autumn Procne came againAnd leapt upon the crooked sloe-bough singing,And the dark berries winked like earth-dimmed beads,As the branch swung beneath her dancing feet.
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See, I have bent thee by thy saffron hair— O most strange masker —Towards my face, thy face so full of eyes— O almost legendary monster —Thee of the saffron, circling hair I bend,Bend by my fingers knotted in thy hair— Hair like broad flames.So, shall I swear by beech-husk, spindleberry,To break thee, saffron hair and peering eye,— To have the mastery?
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While I have vision, while the glowing-bodied,Drunken with light, untroubled clouds, with all this cold sphered sky,Are flushed above trees where the dew falls secretly,Where no man goes, where beasts move silently,As gently as light feathered winds that fallChill among hollows filled with sighing grass;While I have vision, while my mind is borneA finger's length above reality,Like that small plaining bird that drifts and dropsAmong these soft lapped hollows;Robed gods, whose passing fills calm nights with sudden wind,Whose spears still bar our twilight, bend and fillWind-shaken, troubled spaces with some peace,With clear untroubled beauty;That I may rise not chill and shrilling through perpetual day,Remote, amazèd, larklike, but may holdThe hours as firm, warm fruit,This finger's length above reality.
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As wind-drowned scents that bring to other hillsDisquieting memories of silences,Broad silences beyond the memory;As feathered swaying seeds, as wings of birdsDappling the sky with honey-coloured gold;Faint murmurs, clear, keen-winged of swift ideasBreak my small silences;And I must hunt and come to tire of huntingStrange laughing thoughts that roister through my mind,Hopelessly swift to flit; and so I huntAnd come to tire of hunting.
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Tools with the comely names,Mattock and scythe and spade,Couth and bitter as flames,Clean, and bowed in the blade, —A man and his tools make a man and his trade.Breadth of the English shires,Hummock and kame and mead,Tang of the reeking byres,Land of the English breed, —A man and his land make a man and his creed.Leisurely flocks and herds,Cool-eyed cattle that comeMildly to wonted words,Swine that in orchards roam, —A man and his beasts make a man and his home.Children sturdy and flaxenShouting in brotherly strife,Like the land they are Saxon,Sons of a man and his wife, —For a man and his loves make a man and his life.
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All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her homeNo longer know her step on the upland tracks forlornWhere she was wont to roam.All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead,That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse,Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fledOut of the yellow gorse.All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed,The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand,And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the lastIs the voice of the lonely land.
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She was wearing the coral taffeta trousersSomeone had brought her from Ispahan,And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,And the coral-hafted feather fan;But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran.She cared not a rap for all the big planets,For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,And all the big planets cared nothing for her,That small impertinent charlatan;But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.
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Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bayI with the kestrels shared the cleanly day,The candid day; wind-shaven, brindled turf;Tall cliffs; and long sea-line of marbled surfFrom Cornish Lizard to the Kentish NoreLipping the bulwarks of the English shore,While many a lovely ship below sailed byOn unknown errand, kempt and leisurely;And after each, oh, after each, my heartFled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart,I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wideThat might befall their beauty and their pride;Shared first with them the blessèd void reposeOf oily days at sea, when only roseThe porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheenOf satin water indolently green,When for'ard the crew, caps tilted over eyes,Lay heaped on deck; slept; mumbled; smoked; threw dice;The sleepy summer days; the summer nights(The coast pricked out with rings of harbour-lights),The motionless nights, the vaulted nights of JuneWhen high in the cordage drifts the entangled moon,And blocks go knocking, and the sheets go slapping,And lazy swells against the sides come lapping;And summer mornings off red Devon rocks,Faint inland bells at dawn and crowing cocks;Shared swifter days, when headlands into kenTrod grandly; threatened; and were lost again,Old fangs along the battlemented coast;And followed still my ship, when winds were mostNight-purified, and, lying steeply over,She fled the wind as flees a girl her lover,Quickened by that pursuit for which she fretted,Her temper by the contest proved and whetted.Wild stars swept overhead; her lofty sparsReared to a ragged heaven sown with starsAs leaping out from narrow English easeShe faced the roll of long Atlantic seas.Her captain then was I, I was her crew,The mind that laid her course, the wake she drew,The waves that rose against her bows, the gales, —Nay, I was more: I was her very sailsRounded before the wind, her eager keel,Her straining mast-heads, her responsive wheel,Her pennon stiffened like a swallow's wing;Yes, I was all her slope and speed and swing,Whether by yellow lemons and blue seaShe dawdled through the isles off Thessaly,Or saw the palms like sheaves of scimitarsOn desert's verge below the sunset bars,Or passed the girdle of the planet whereThe Southern Cross looks over to the Bear,And strayed, cool Northerner beneath strange skies,Flouting the lure of tropic estuaries,Down that long coast, and saw Magellan's Clouds arise.And some that beat up Channel homeward-boundI watched, and wondered what they might have found,What alien ports enriched their teeming holdWith crates of fruit or bars of unwrought gold?And thought how London clerks with paper-clipsHad filed the bills of lading of those ships,Clerks that had never seen the embattled sea,But wrote down jettison and barratry,Perils, Adventures, and the Act of God,Having no vision of such wrath flung broad;Wrote down with weary and accustomed penThe classic dangers of sea-faring men;And wrote 'Restraint of Princes,' and 'the ActsOf the King's Enemies,' as vacant facts,Blind to the ambushed seas, the encircling roarOf angry nations foaming into war.
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So well she knew them both! yet as she cameInto the room, and heard their speechOf tragic meshes knotted with her name,And saw them, foes, but meeting each with eachCloser than friends, souls bared through enmity,Beneath their startled gaze she thought that sheBroke as the stranger on their conference,And stole abashed from thence.
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Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mildEven in indignation, taking by the handOne that obeyed them mutely, as a childSubmissive to a law he does not understand.They would not blame the sins his passion wrought.No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, 'WeOnly deplore ...' saying they only soughtTo help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but heFollowing them with unrecalcitrant tread,Quiet, towards their town of kind captivities,Having slain rebellion, ever turned his headOver his shoulder, seeking still with his poor eyesHer motionless figure on the road. The songRang still between them, vibrant bell to answering bell,Full of young glory as a bugle; strong;Still brave; now breaking like a sea-bird's cry 'Farewell!'And they, they whispered kindly to him 'Come!Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget!She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb,He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet,(Knowing the while that they were very kind)Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free,Magnificent in giving; she was blindTo gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me, — but me!'Valiant she was, and comradely, and bold;High-mettled; all her thoughts a challenge, like gay shipsAdventurous, with treasure in the hold.I met her with the lesson put into my lips,'Spoke reason to her, and she bowed her head,Having no argument, and giving up the strife.She said I should be free. I think she saidThat, for the asking, she would give me all her life.'And still they led him onwards, and he stillLooked back towards her standing there; and they, content,Cheered him and praised him that he did their will.The gradual distance hid them, and she turned, and went.
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When little lights in little ports come out,Quivering down through water with the stars,And all the fishing fleet of slender sparsRange at their moorings, veer with tide about;When race of wind is stilled and sails are furled,And underneath our single riding-lightThe curve of black-ribbed deck gleams palely white,And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world;— Then, and then only, have I thought how sweetOld age might sink upon a windy youth,Quiet beneath the riding-light of truth,Weathered through storms, and gracious in retreat.
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This is the sea. In these uneven wallsA wave lies prisoned. Far and far awayOutward to ocean, as the slow tide falls,Her sisters through the capes that hold the bayDancing in lovely liberty recede.Yet lovely in captivity she lies,Filled with soft colours, where the wavering weedMoves gently and discloses to our eyesBlurred shining veins of rock and lucent shellsUnder the light-shot water; and here reposeSmall quiet fish and dimly glowing bellsOf sleeping sea-anemones that closeTheir tender fronds and will not now awakeTill on these rocks the waves returning break.
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We may raise our voices even in this still glade:Though the colours and shadows and sounds so fleeting seem,We shall not dispel them. They are not madeFrailly by earth or hands, but immortal in our dream.We may touch the faint violets with the hands of thought,Or lay the pale core of the wild arum bare;And for ever in our minds the white wild cherry is caught,Cloudy against the sky and melting into air.This which we have seen is eternally ours,No others shall tread in the glade which now we see;Their hands shall not touch the frail tranquil flowers,Nor their hearts faint in wonder at the wild white tree.
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In silence and in darkness memory wakesHer million sheathèd buds, and breaksThat day-long winter when the light and noiseAnd hard bleak breath of the outward-looking willMade barren her tender soil, when every voiceOf her million airy birds was muffled or still.One bud-sheath breaks:One sudden voice awakes.What change grew in our hearts, seeing one nightThat moth-winged ship drifting across the bay,Her broad sail dimly whiteOn cloudy waters and hills as vague as they?Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight,Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down,Talking in whispers, to the little town,Down from the narrow hill— Talking in whispers, for the air so stillImposed its stillness on our lips, and madeA quiet equal with the equal shadeThat filled the slanting walk. That phantom nowSlides with slack canvas and unwhispering prowThrough the dark sea that this dark room has made.Or the night of the closed eyes will turn to day,And all day's colours start out of the gray.The sun burns on the water. The tall hillsPush up their shady groves into the sky,And fail and cease where the intense light spillsIts parching torrent on the gaunt and dryRock of the further mountains, whence the snowThat softened their harsh edges long is gone,And nothing tempers nowThe hot flood falling on the barren stone.O memory, take and keepAll that my eyes, your servants, bring you home —Those other days beneath the low white domeOf smooth-spread clouds that creepAs slow and soft as sleep,When shade grows pale and the cypress stands upright,Distinct in the cool light,Rigid and solid as a dark hewn stone;And many another night,That melts in darkness on the narrow quays,And changes every colour and every tone,And soothes the waters to a softer ease,When under constellations coldly brightThe homeward sailors sing their way to bedOn ships that motionless in harbour float.The circling harbour-lights flash green and red;And, out beyond, a steady travelling boat,Breaking the swell with slow industrious oars,At each stroke poursPale lighted water from the lifted blade.Now in the painted houses all aroundSlow-darkening windows callThe empty unwatched middle of the night.The tide's few inches rise without a sound.On the black promontory's windless head,The last awake, the fireflies rise and fallAnd tangle up their dithering skeins of light.O memory, take and keepAll that my eyes, your servants, bring you home!Thick through the changing yearThe unexpected, rich-charged moments come,That you twixt wake and sleepIn the lids of the closed eyes shall make appear.This is life's certain good,Though in the end it be not good at allWhen the dark end arises,And the stripped, startled spirit must let fallThe amulets that couldPrevail with life's but not death's sad devices.Then, like a child from whom an older childForces its gathered treasures,Its beads and shells and strings of withered flowers,Tokens of recent pleasures,The soul must lose in eyes weeping and wildThose prints of vanished hours.
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No more upon my bosom rest thee,Too often have my hands caressed thee,My lips thou knowest well, too well;Lean to my heart no more thine earMy spirit's living truth to hear— It has no more to tell.In what dark night, in what strange night,Burnt to the butt the candle's lightThat lit our room so long?I do not know, I thought I knewHow love could be both sweet and true:I also thought it strong.Where has the flame departed? Where,Amid the empty waste of air,Is that which dwelt with us?Was it a fancy? Did we makeOnly a show for dead love's sake,It being so piteous?No more against my bosom press thee,Seek no more that my hands caress thee,Leave the sad lips thou hast known so well;If to my heart thou lean thine ear,There grieving thou shalt only hearVain murmuring of an empty shell.
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Blow harder, wind, and driveMy blood from hands and face back to the heart.Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs,Carry the flying dapple of the cloudsOver the grass, over the soft-grained plough,Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hairAgainst its usual set.Snatch at the reins in my dead hands and push meOut of my saddle, blow my labouring ponyAcross the track. You only drive my bloodNearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there,Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful,A numb, confusèd joy!This little world's in tumult. Far awayThe dim waves rise and wrestle with each otherAnd fall down headlong on the beach. And hereQuick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleysAnd meet their raging fellows on the hill-tops,And we are in the midst.This beating heart, enriched with the hands' blood,Stands in the midst and feels the warm joy burnIn solitude and silence, while all aboutThe gusts clamour like living, angry birds,And the gorse seems hardly tethered to the ground.Blow louder, wind, aboutMy square-set house, rattle the windows, liftThe trap-door to the loft above my headAnd let it fall, clapping. Yell in the trees,And throw a rotted elm-branch to the ground,Flog the dry trailers of my climbing rose —Make deep, O wind, my rest!
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The leafless trees, the untidy stackLast rainy summer raised in haste,Watch the sky turn from fair to blackAnd watch the river fill and waste;But never a footstep comes to troubleThe sea-gulls in the new-sown corn,Or pigeons rising from late stubbleAnd flashing lighter as they turn.Or if a footstep comes, 'tis mineSharp on the road or soft on grass:Silence divides along my lineAnd shuts behind me as I pass.No other comes, no labourerTo cut his shaggy truss of hay,Along the road no traveller,Day after day, day after day.And even I, when I come here,Move softly on, subdued and still,Lonely as death, though I can hearMen shouting on the other hill.Day after day, though no one sees,The lonely place no different seems;The trees, the stack, still imagesConstant in who can say whose dreams?
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I vaguely wondered what you were about,But never wrote when you had gone away;Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubtYou might need faces, or have things to say.Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay.O bitter words of conscience!I hold the simple message,And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out:'It shall not be to-day;It is still yesterday; there is time yet!'Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun,But the sun moves. Our onward course is set,The wake streams out, the engine pulses runDroning, a lonelier voyage is begun.It is all too late for turning,You are past all mortal signal,There will be time for nothing but regretAnd the memory of things done!The quiet voice that always counselled best,The mind that so ironically playedYet for mere gentleness forebore the jest.The proud and tender heart that sat in shadeNor once solicited another's aid,Yet was so grateful alwaysFor trifles lightly given,The silences, the melancholy guessedSometimes, when your eyes strayed.But always when you turned, you talked the more.Through all our literature your way you tookWith modest ease; yet would you soonest pore,Smiling, with most affection in your look,On the ripe ancient and the curious nook.Sage travellers, learnèd printers,Divines and buried poets,You knew them all, but never half your loreWas drawn from any book.Stories and jests from field and town and port,And odd neglected scraps of historyFrom everywhere, for you were of the sort,Cool and refined, who like rough company:Carter and barmaid, hawker and bargee,Wise pensioners and boxersWith whom you drank, and listenedTo legends of old revelry and sportAnd customs of the sea.I hear you: yet more clear than all one note,One sudden hail I still remember best,That came on sunny days from one afloatAnd drew me to the pane in certain questOf a long brown face, bare arms and flimsy vest,In fragments through the branches,Above the green reflections:Paused by the willows in your varnished boatYou, with your oars at rest.Did that come back to you when you were dying?I think it did: you had much leisure there,And, with the things we knew, came quietly flyingMemories of things you had seen we knew not where.You watched again with meditative starePlaces where you had wandered,Golden and calm in distance:Voices from all your altering past came sighingOn the soft Hampshire air.For there you sat a hundred miles away,A rug upon your knees, your hands gone frail,And daily bade your farewell to the day,A music blent of trees and clouds a-sailAnd figures in some old neglected tale:And watched the sunset gathering,And heard the birdsong fading,And went within when the last sleepy layPassed to a farther vale,Never complaining, and stepped up to bedMore and more slow, a tall and sunburnt manGrown bony and bearded, knowing you would be deadBefore the summer, glad your life beganEven thus to end, after so short a span,And mused a space serenely,Then fell to easy slumber,At peace, content. For never again your headNeed make another plan.Most generous, most gentle, most discreet,Who left us ignorant to spare us pain:We went our ways with too forgetful feetAnd missed the chance that would not come again,Leaving with thoughts on pleasure bent, or gain,Fidelity unattestedAnd services unrendered:The ears are closed, the heart has ceased to beat,And now all proof is vain.Too late for other gifts, I give you this,Who took from you so much, so carelessly,On your far brows a first and phantom kiss,On your far grave a careful elegy.For one who loved all life and poetry,Sorrow in music bleeding,And friendship's last confession.But even as I speak that inner hissSoftly accuses me,Saying: Those brows are senseless, deaf that tomb,This is the callous, cold resort of art.'I give you this.' What do I give? to whom?Words to the air, and balm to my own heart,To its old luxurious and commanded smart.An end to all this tuning,This cynical masquerading;What comfort now in that far final gloomCan any song impart?O yet I see you dawning from some heaven,Who would not suffer self-reproach to liveIn one to whom your friendship once was given.I catch a vision, faint and fugitive,Of a dark face with eyes contemplative,Deep eyes that smile in silence,And parted lips that whisper,'Say nothing more, old friend, of being forgiven,There is nothing to forgive.'
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What deaths men have died, not fighting but impotent.Hung on the wire, between trenches, burning and freezing,Groaning for water with armies of men so near;The fall over cliff, the clutch at the rootless grass,The beach rushing up, the whirling, the turning headfirst;Stiff writhings of strychnine, taken in error or haste,Angina pectoris, shudders of the heart;Failure and crushing by flying weight to the ground,Claws and jaws, the stink of a lion's breath;Swimming, a white belly, a crescent of teeth,Agony, and a spirting shredded limb,And crimson blood staining the green water;And, horror of horrors, the slow grind on the rack,The breaking bones, the stretching and bursting skin,Perpetual fainting and waking to see aboveThe down-thrust mocking faces of cruel men,With the power of mercy, who gloat upon shrieks for mercy.O pity me, God! O God, make tolerable,Make tolerable the end that awaits for me,And give me courage to die when the time comes,When the time comes as it must, however it comes,That I shrink not nor scream, gripped by the jaws of the vice;For the thought of it turns me sick, and my heart stands still,Knocks and stands still. O fearful, fearful Shadow,Kill me, let me die to escape the terror of thee!A tap. Come in! Oh, no, I am perfectly well,Only a little tired. Take this one, it's softer.How are things going with you? Will you have some coffee?Well, of course it's trying sometimes, but never mind,It will probably be all right. Carry on, and keep cheerful.I shouldn't, if I were you, meet trouble half-way,It is always best to take everything as it comes.
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The heavy train through the dim country went rolling, rolling,Interminably passing misty snow-covered plough-land ridgesThat merged in the snowy sky; came turning meadows, fences,Came gullies and passed, and ice-coloured streams under frozen bridges.Across the travelling landscape evenly drooped and liftedThe telegraph wires, thick ropes of snow in the windless air;They drooped and paused and lifted again to unseen summits,Drawing the eyes and soothing them, often, to a drowsy stare.Singly in the snow the ghosts of trees were softly pencilled,Fainter and fainter, in distance fading, into nothingness gliding,But sometimes a crowd of the intricate silver trees of fairylandPassed, close and intensely clear, the phantom world hiding.O untroubled these moving mantled miles of shadowless shadows,And lovely the film of falling flakes; so wayward and slack;But I thought of many a mother-bird screening her nestlings,Sitting silent with wide bright eyes, snow on her back.