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From the tennis lawn you can hear the guns going,Twenty miles away,Telling the people of the home countiesThat the peace was signed to-day.To-night there'll be feasting in the city;They will drink deep and eat —Keep peace the way you planned you would keep it(If we got the Boche beat).Oh, your plan and your word, they are broken,For you neither dine nor dance;And there's no peace so quiet, so lasting,As the peace you keep in France.You'll be needing no Covenant of NationsTo hold your peace intact.It does not hang on the close guardingOf a frail and wordy pact.When ours screams, shattered and driven,Dust down the storming years,Yours will stand stark, like a grey fortress,Blind to the storm's tears.Our peace ... your peace ... I see neither.They are a dream, and a dream.I only see you laughing on the tennis lawn;And brown and alive you seem,As you stoop over the tall red foxglove,(It flowers again this year)And imprison within a freckled bellA bee, wild with fear....* * * * *Oh, you cannot hear the noisy guns going:You sleep too far away.It is nothing to you, who have your own peace,That our peace was signed to-day.
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From the French of
José Maria de Heredia
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If on a day it should befallThat love must have her funeral;And men weep tears that love is dead,That never more her gracious headCan turn to meet their eyes and holdTheir hearts with chains of silky gold;That never more her hands can beAs dear as was virginity;That in her coffin there is laidBeauty, the body of a maid,The body of one so piteous-sweet,With candles burning at her feetAnd cowled monks singing requiem....I think I would not go with them,Her lordly lovers, to the placeWhere lies that lovely mournful face,That curving throat and marvellous hairUnder the sconces' yellow flare —How shall a man be comfortedWhen love is dead, when love is dead?But I would make my moan apart,Keeping my dreams within my heart —For guarded as a sepulchreShall be the house I built for herOf silver spires and pinnaclesWith carillons of mellow bells,A house of song for her delightWhose joy was as the strong sunlight —But now love's ultimate word is said,For love is dead, for love is dead!But even should all hope be lostSome memory, like a thin white ghost,Might stealthily move in midnight hoursAmong those silent sacred towers,And glimmer on the moonlit lawnUntil the cold ironic dawnArises from her saffron bed —When love is dead, when love is dead.
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Lest, tortured by the world's strong sin,Her little bruised heart should die —Give her your heart to shelter in,O earth and sky!Kneel, sun, to clothe her round aboutWith rays to keep her body warm;And, kind moon, shut the shadows outThat work her harm.Yes, even shield her from my will'sWild folly — hold her safe and close! —For my rough hand in touching spillsLife from the rose.But teach me, too, that I may learnYour passion classical and cool;To me, who tremble so and burn,Be pitiful!
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Praise! that when thick night circled over meIn chaos ere my time or world began,Thy finger shaped my body cunningly,Thy thought conceived me ere I was a man!Thy Spirit breathed upon me in the darkWherein I strangely grew,Bestowing glowing powers to the sparkThe mouth of heaven blew!Praise! that a babe I leapt upon the worldSpread at my feet in its magnificence,With trees as giants, flowers as flags unfurled.And rains as diamonds in their excellence!Praise! for the solemn splendour of surpriseThat came with breaking day;For all the ranks of stars that met my eyesWhen sunset burned away!Praise! that there burst on my unfolding heartThe coloured radiance of leafy June,With choirs of song-birds perfected in art,And nightingales beneath the summer moon —Praise! that this beauty, an unravished brideDoth hold her lover still;Doth hide and beckon, laugh at me, and hideUpon each grassy hill.Praise! that I know the dear capricious skyIn every infinitely varied mood —Yet under her maternal wings can lieThe smallest chick among her countless brood!Praise! that I hear the strong winds wildly raceTheir chariots on the sea,But feel them lift my hair and stroke my faceSoftly and tenderly!Praise! for the joy and gladness thou didst send,When I have sat in gracious fellowshipIn firelight for an evening with a friend.When wine and magic entered at the lip!For laughter which the fates can overthrowThy mercy doth accord —To Thee, who didst my godlike joy bestow,I lift my glass, O Lord!Praise! that a lady leaning from her height,A lady pitiful, a tender maid,A queen majestical unto my sight,Spoke words of love to me, and sweetly laidHer hand within my own unworthy hand!(Rise, soul, to greet thy guest,Mysterious love, whom none shall understand,Though love be all confessed!)Praise! that upon my bent and bleeding backWas stretched some share of Thy redeeming cross,Some poverty as largess for my lack,Some loss that shall prevent my utter loss!Praise! that thou gavest me to keep joy sweetThe sanguine salt of pain!Praise! for the weariness of questing feetThat else might quest in vain!
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Dear exile from the hurrying crowd,At work I muse to you aloud;Thought on my anvil softens, glows,And I forget our art has foes;For life, the mother of beauty, seemsA joyous sleep with waking dreams.Then the toy armoury of the brainOpining, judging, looks as vainAs trowels silver gilt for useOf mayors and kings, who have to layFoundation stones in hope they mayBe honoured for walls others build.I, in amicable muse,With fathomless wonder only filled,Whisper over to your earListening two hundred odd miles north,And give thought chase that, were you here,Our talk would never run to earth.Man can answer no momentous question:Whence comes his spirit? Has it lived before?Reason fails; hot springs of feeling spoutTheir snowy columns high in the dim landOf his surmise — violent divine decisionsThat often rule him: and at times he viewsPortraits of places he has never been to,Yet more minute and vivid than remembrance,Of boyhood homes, sail between sleep and wakingLike some mirage, refuting all experienceWith topsy-turvy ships,That steals by in dead calms through tropic haze:And many a man in his climacteric years,Thoughts and remembered words have roused from sleepWith knowledge that he lacked on lying down:And I, lapped in a trance of reverie, doubtSome spore of episodesAnterior far beyond this body's birth,Dispersed like puffs of dust impalpable,Wind-carried round this globe for centuries,May, breathed with common air, yet swim the blood,And striking root in this or that brain, raiseImaginations unaccountable;One such seems half-implied in all I am,And many times re-pondered shapes like this:A child myself I watched a woman lollLike to a clot of seaweed thrown ashore;Heavy and limp as cloth soaked in black dye,She glooms the noontide dazzle where a bayBites into vineyarded flats close-fenced by hills,Over whose tops lap forests of cork and firAnd reach in places half down their rough slopes.Lower, some few cleared fields square on the thicketsOf junipers and longer thorns than furzeSo clumped that they are trackless even for goatsI know two things about that woman: firstShe is a slave and I am free, and nextAs mothers need their sons' love she needs mine.Longings to utter fond compassionate soundsStir through me, checked by knowing wiser folkReprobate such indulgence. Ill at ease,Mute, yet her captive, I thrust brown toes throughLoose sand no daily large tides overwhelmTo cake and roll it firm and smooth and cleanAs the Atlantic remakes shores, you know.But there, like trailing skirts, long flaws of windObliterate the prints feet during calmsTrack over and over its always lonely stretch,Till some will have, it ghosts must rove at night;For folk by day are rare, yet a still weekLeaves hardly ten yards anywhere uncrossed;Tempest spreads all revirginate like snow,Half burying dead wood snapped off from tossed trees,Since right along the foreshore, out of reachOf furious driven waves, three hundred pinesStraggle the marches between sand and soil.Like maps of stone-walled fields their branching rootsHold the silt still so that thin grass grows there,Its blades whitened with travelling powdery driftThe besom of the lightest breeze sets stirring.That woman's gaze toils worn from remote years,Yet forward yearns through the bright spacious noon,Beyond the farthest isle, whose filmy shapeFloats faint on the sea-line.I, scooping grains up with the frail half-shellPale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knewWhat her eyes sought as often children knowOf grief or sin they could not name or think ofYet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longedTo heal her tender wound and yet said naught.The energy of bygone joy and painHad left her listless figure charged with magicThat caught and held my idleness near hers.Resentful of her power, my spirit chafedAgainst its own deep pity, as though it wereRaised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me.What's more I knew this slave by rights should gleanAnd faggot drift-wood, not lounge there and wasteMy father's food dreaming his time away.For then as now the common-minded richGrudged ease to those whose toil brought them in meansFor every waste of life. At length I spoke,Insulting both my inarticulate soulAnd her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch,Is it for eyes like yours to watch the seaAs though you waited for a homing ship?My father might with reason spend his hoursScanning the far horizon; for his SwanWhose outward lading was full half a vintageIs now months overdue." She turned on meHer languor knit and, through its homespun wrap,Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will,While those great caves of night, her eyes, faced mine,Dread with the silence of unuttered wrongs:At last she spoke as one who must be heeded.Truly I am not clearWhether her meaning was conveyed in words(She mingled accents of an eastern tongueWith deformed phrases of our native Latin)Or whether thought from her gaze poured through mine.The gravity of recollected lifeWas hers, condensed and, like a vision, flashedSuddenly on the guilty mind, a wholeCompact, no longer a mere tedious stringOf moments negligible, each so smallAs they were lived, but stark like a slain manWho would alive have been ourself with twiceThe skill, the knowledge, the vitalityActually ours. Yea, as a tree may viewWith fingerless boughs and lorn pole impotent,An elephant gorged upon its leaves depart,Men often have reviewed an unwieldy past,That like a feasted Mammoth, leisured and slow,Turned its back on their warped bones. Even thus,Momentous with reproach, her grave regardMade me feel mean, cashiered of rank and right,My limbs that twelve good years had nursed were numbedAnd all their fidgety quicksilver grew stiff,Novel and fevering hallucinationsInvaded my attention. So daylightWhen shutters are thrown back spreads through a house;As then the dreams and terrors of the nightDecamp, so from my mind were drivenAll its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leantPropped on a swarthy arm, while the other helpedWith eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand,Veil the world off as with an airy web,Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds.These tauten and distend — one sea of wheat,Islanded with black cities, borders nowThe voluminous blue pavilion of day.There-under to the nearest of those townsThis woman younger by ten years made hasteWhile at her side ran a small boy of six.They neared the walls, half a huge double gateLay prostrate, though the other by stone hingesHung to its flanking tower. The path they followedThreaded an old paved road whose flags were edgedWith dry grass and dry weeds, even cactusesHad pushed the stones up or found root in muck heaps:The path struck up the slope of the fallen door,Basalt like midnight, o'er which dusty feetHad greyed a passage, for it rested onSome débris fallen from the left-hand tower,And from its upper edge rude blocks like stepsLed down into the straight main street, that ranPast eyeless buildings mined as it were from coal,And earthquake-raised to light. Palaces andRoofless wide-flighted colonnaded temples,The uncemented walls piled-plumb with blocksSquared, polished, fitted with daemonic patience.Each gaping threshold high again as need beWaited a nine-foot lord to enter hall,Where the least draughty corner sheltered nowHalf-tented hut or improvised small homeFor Arab, brown, light-footed and proud-neckedAs was this woman with the compelling voice.Their present hutched and hived within that pastAs bees in the parchment chest of Samson's lion;And all seem conscious that their life was sweet,Like mice who clean their faces after mealsAnd have such grace of movement, when unscared,As wins the admiration even of thoseWhose stores they rob and soil. I saw her eyesYoung with contentment in her sonAnd smaller babe and in their handsome sire,And knew that many a supper had been relishedWith hearts as joyous as waited while she cookedAnd served upon returning to their cotIn hall where once far other hearts caroused.They and their tribe could never reap a titheOf the vast harvest rustling round those ruins,And over which a half-moon soon set forthFrom black hills mounded up both east and south,While north-west her light played on distant summits;All the huge interspace floored with standing cornWhich kings afar send soldiery to reap,Who now, beside a long canal cut straightIn ancient days, have pitched their noisy campWhich on that vast staid silence makes a bruiseOf blare and riot that its robust healthWill certainly heal in a brief lapse of time.One night, re-thought on after ten whole years,Is like the condor high above the Andes,A speck with difficulty found againOnce the attention quits it. And I nextDescried our woman under breathless noon,Bathing in a clear lane of gliding waterWhose banks seem lonely as the path of lightCrossing mid ocean south of Capricorn.Her son steals warily after a butterflyAnd is as hushed with hope to capture itAs are the birds with heat. An insect humCircles the spot as round a cymbal's rim,Long after it has clanged, tingles a throbWhich in a dream forgets the parent sound,Oppressed by this protracted and awe-filled pause,She hardly dares to wade the stream and movesAs though in dread to wake some sleeping god,Yet still she nears and nears the further bankWhere there is shade under a shumac's eaves.The brilliant surface cut her right in two,And the reflection of her bronzed torsoHid all beneath the polished gliding mirror;How her face listened to that sleep divineWhose audible breath was tuned to dreams of bliss!Sudden, as though the woof of heaven were torn,A strident shout rang from some neighbour shrubsThree Nubian soldiers ran upon her withDelighted oily faces. Screaming firstCommands to her small son to make for home,She laboured to recross the current as whenIn nightmares the scared soul expects to dieTortured by mutiny in limbs like lead,But as the playful lion of the seaClimbs the rock ledges hard by Fingal's caveTo throw himself down into deep green baths,While others barking follow his vigorous lead,The foremost Abyssinian threw his weightBefore her with a splash that hid them both,As the explosion of light-filled liquid parcelsShot forth in all directions. In his armsShe re-appeared, a tragic terrified faceBeside his coarse one laughing with success.Squeezing her with a pantomime of love,He turns to follow an arrow with his eyesThat his companion, still upon the bank,Has aimed towards her son's small head that bobbedLike a black cork across the basking corn.But from the level of the sunk stream bedNeither he nor she could see the target aimed at,Yet in the pause they heard the poor child scream;A second arrow, second scream; she fought,But soon like bundle bound, hung o'er his shoulder,Helpless as a mouse in cat's mouth carried offIn search of quiet, there to play with it.Those arrows missed? — or did they not? The childShrieked twice, yet scarcely like a wounded thingShe thought and hoped and still but thinks and hopes.Where is that boy? Where is her husband now?While she submitted body to force and soulTo the great shuddering violence of despairHow had their life progressed in that far place?Compassion fused my consciousness with hersAnd second-sighted eloquence aroseTo claim my mind for rostrum,But obstinately trancedMy eyes clung to their vision;For regions to explore allure the boyNo stretch of thought or sea of feeling tempts.Entranced, the mind I then had, hauntedThose basalt ruins. High on sable towersSome silky patriarchal goat appearsAnd ponders silent streets, or suddenlySome nanny, her huge bag swollen with milk,Trots out on galleries that unfenced runRound vacant courts, there, stopped by plaintive kids,Lets them complete their meal. While always, always,Throughout, those mazed, sullen and sun-soaked walls,The steady, healthy wind,Which often blows for weeks without a lullAcross that upland plain,Flutes staidly. MoaningContinuously as seasOr forests before storm,And, gathering moment,Articulated by her woe, beginsWith second-sighted eloquenceTo wail through me,Nigh as unheeded,As though it still had beenMeaningless wind.For ah! the heart is cowedAnd dares not use her strength,Hears the kind impulse pleadAgainst the common avaricious fear,Grants it but life, though sovereignty was dueOr doles it sway but one day out of sevenOr one a year.So, so, and ever, soIn the close-curtained courtThose causes are deferredWhich most import;These wait man's leisure.These daily matters elbow;Merely becauseHis panic meannessJibs blindly ere it hearWhat wisdom has prepared,Bolts headlong ere it seeHer face unfold its smile.Man after man, race after raceDrops jaded by the iterancyOf petty fear.Even as horses on the green steppes grazing,Hundreds scattered through lonely peacefulness,If shadow of cloud or red fox breaking earthDelude but one with dream of a stealthy foe,All are stampeded.Their frantic torrent draws in,With dire attraction, cumulative force,Stragglers grazing miles from where it started;On it thunders quite devoid of meaning.The tender private soulThus takes contagion from the sordid crowd,And shying at mere dread of loss,Loses the whole of life.Thus, in the vortex of a base turmoil,Those myriad million energies wear downThat might have raised mankindTo live the life of gods.Had but my soul been his,As his was mine,Those wind-resembling accentsHad found fit auditor.Their second-sighted eloquence,Welcomed with acclamation,Had fired action.But that was ages since: he was not thenWhat now I am,Who have no longerThe opportunity then mine, then missed, —Who still am dazed and troubledSurmising others mine, others missed.Passionate, never-wearied voice,Tombed in thy brittle shell,This human heartThou croonest age on age,"Give and ask not,Help and blame not,"Heeded less than large and mottled cowryThe which at least some child may hold to earAll smiles to listen.Thou findest parables;With fond imaginationAdorning truthFor the successiveUnpersuadedGenerations.This boy, myself that was,Musing visions by that woman raised,Watched that land she came from, towned with ruinsSend mile-long files of laden camels outWith grain to hostile cities, —Knew too the blue entrancing plain of watersTeemed with fresh shoals, buoyed up indifferently,Fisher — trader — pirate bark, —Even the straight thought whispered at his ear,"Thy lips might join with hers as with some cousin's,Here, now, at noon,Hugging her bereavéd sadness close,And still, to-night, with equal satisfaction,Thy mother's blind contentment with her son."While half-seduced, half-chafed, his mind was shakenAs with conflicting gusts a choppy sea,His eyes, still greedy of their visions,Fastened a swarthy town enisled in wheat,And to the ebon threshold of each house,Conjured forth the man that each was planned for:Great creatures smiling with his father's smile,Muscular, wealthy and self-satisfied,Wearing loud-coloured raiment, earrings, chains,Armlet and buckle, all of clanking gold.His spirit drank from theirs great draughts of prideAnd read their minds more clearly than his own;All, with one counsel like a chorus, dinnedHis soul that then was mine,With truths well-proved in action."Love is chaos,For order's sakeWhatever must be, should be,"Roared those bulls of Bashan.Then their proud chant argued,"How should this woman knowHer little lad again,Who either now is bonesUnder the fertile field,Or well nigh a grown man?Say they should cross at marketBoth slaves would pass on, not a start the wiser.What is she then to himOr he to herAfter these years?To drag a life that might have been but is notWith toil of mind and heart,Through dreary year on year,Neglecting for its sake the life that is,Spells folly and ingratitude to thoseWho treat their slaves well.Thy father's household and thyself should beMore to her now than those who may be dead,The place she lives in dearerThan any unattainable far landWhere she is more forgotten than old dreams.Why make the day of evil worseBy dwelling on it after it has past?Near things alone are real,Now is the whole of time:Places beyond the horizon are but pictures;Memory cheats the eye with an illusion!""Your thoughts are sound, bold builders,I am my father's son.Behold this home-shore, these our hills, this bay,And this our slave! —Up, work, look sharp about it!"Bounding a foot and fast retiring from her,I stoop for stones strewn thick about the sand,Aim them, fling them,And, as my idle arm resumes the knack,Score a hit and laughTo see her stumble hurt, behind the pine trunks."Unless you work, I throw again,To it and steady at it.Mark me, drab, we CamilliMean what we say."Stone after stone still flies,But aimed to knock chips from the pine-boles now;For she is busy gathering sticks, increasingHer distance as she may. The noon is sultry,Heated and clammy, I,Towards the live waves turning, slip my tunic,Then run in naked.Cooled and soothed by swimming,Both mind and heart from their late tumult tunedTo placid acquiescent health,I float, suspended in the limpid water,Passive, rhythmically governed;So tranced worlds travel the dark shoreless ether."Where should this stream of pictures tend?"No, Bottomley, you will not ask;To you I am quite free to sendThe unexpected, unexplained,You will not take me thus to task.So they be painted well, they live;If ill, they yet may cling to fameAssociated with your name.In which case you, and not I, giveThat we are both contented with.
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Down here the hawthorn....And a stir of wings,Spring-lit wings that wakeSudden tumult in the brake,Tumult of blossom tide, tumult of foaming mistWhere the bright bird's tumultuous feathers kissed.White mists are blinding me,White mist of hedgerow, white mist of wings.Down here the hawthornAnd a stir of wings....Softly swishing, swift with sprayAll along the green lanewayDewdimmed, sunwashed, windsweet and winter-freeThey flash upon the light,They swing across the sight,I cannot see, I cannot see!...Down here the flowering hawthorn flingsSleet of petals, petalled shellsSpread the coloured air that singsMagic and a myriad spellsSpun by my count of Springs.Down here the hawthorn....And the flower-foam stirredBy a Spring-lit bird.White hawthorn mist is blinding me.I lower my gaze, and on this oldBrown bridle roadCrusted with golden moss and mouldThe hedgerow flingsLush carpetings,Blossom woven carpetings light lainUnder the farmer's lumbering load;And, floating past the spent March wrack,The footstep trail, the traveller's track.Down here the hawthorn....White mists are blinding me,White mists that rime the fresh green bankWhere fernleaf-fallAnd sorrel tallUpwaving, rank on rank,Shall flush the bed whereon the windflowers sank.I turn these Spring-bewildered eyes of mine,I seek above the surf of hedgerow lineWhere peeping branches reach, and reaching twineFaint cherry or plum or eglantine.But with pretence of whisperingsThe year's young mischief-wind shall takeBy storm these shy striplings,And soon or later shakeTheir slender limbs, and makeFree with their clinging may —Strip from them in a single boisterous dayTheir first and last vesture of pale bloom spray.So, as to meet such lackIn bush or brack,The kindly hedgerows makeSure of a Springtime for these frailer things,Shedding on each the lavish creamthorn flake.Down here the hawthorn....On all the green leaf-clusters round me clingsThickly a spray of gentle blossomingsEverywhere as with many bellsThe young year with white magic swells.The morning rings.White mist is blinding me,I cannot see, I cannot see!Blind grows the coloured air that singsThe marvel of a myriad spellsSpun by my count of Springs.Sleet of petals, petalled shellsFalling with sudden poignancy(As the sleet stings)Upon the lightheart-hope which only clear sight knows.And slowly drifts,Lingering among the snowsNor, though the snow lifts,Ever goesThe wistful heartache as the fresh Spring flowsWith slipping sureness to the time of the rose, and the withered rose.Down here the hawthorn....And heaping blossom stirredBy a joy-swift bird.White mists are blinding me,White mist of hedgerow, white mist of wings.The bird's flight flingsDeep carpetingsOver the wrackOf my life's track.Down here the hawthorn....The air of coloured years is blurredBy the Spring, by a bird.White mists are blinding me,White mists on the years to be.I cannot see, I cannot see....
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Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitternessOf wind and storm.Stem ye the drift of herded menWith your uncouthnessSo, tasting of your power, they pressBack shrinking where upon their warmSafe ways of smoothnessThey feed their various lusts again.Guard ye, wild hills, with scar and whipYour outlawryLest alien-hearted pigmies tameYour trackless boulders,And with their unclean cunning slipThe leash of civilryFast round your shoulders.O keep ye from that shame.Or they shall surely come, black hordesSwarming as liceWith their obscenities and greedAcross your fastness,Even your peaks that swing white swords,Rent, splintered iceInto the vastnessOf skies where fanged winds feed.Hurl down, harsh hills, your bitterness,Guard ye with flailOf shattering wind and thong of sleetYour pride upliftingTo the impaled stars; be pitilessBefore this unquiet trailOf man-herds driftingAgainst your stone still feet.
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Something moves in his dust,Flame sleeps beneath the crust;O whence had he those eyesLit with celestial surprise?From what world blew that gust?Are we near to Paradise?Gather a chaplet of five starsAnd the opalescent hueOf the aureole brightness cast —Red, hardly red, and blue, scarce blue, —Round th' immaculate frosty moon,Splintering light in glacial spars,When November's loudening blastSweeps heaven's floor till burnishedMore crystal than at August noon,So we fit radiance may castBefore his feet, around his head.How visits he an earthly place,Wanders among a mortal race?How were his footsteps ledThat still about his faceLingers a ghostly traceOf a secret influence shedBy a Hand the world denies,In a land her most son flies,As a gift upon him thrustFor an end he knoweth not,Yet will shine because he must,Shine and sing because he mustReap a wrong he soweth notOf contempt anger and distrustFor a world which boweth notTo the Flame which binds our dust.Go net the moon, go snare the sun,Set them upon his either hand!Beneath his heels LeviathanRoll your thick coils! His head be spannedBy rainbows tripled! Set a gemAt the Cross-scabbard of his swordWhiter than lambwool or lilystem!Place on his brow the diademGiven the warrior of the Lord,The crown-turrets of Jerusalem!
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I'll sing a song of kings and queensAnd falling leaves and flying rain,With Time to mow, and Fate who gleansTheir good and evil, boon and bane.I'll sing a song of leaves and rainsAnd flying queens and falling kings.Yet doubt not reason still remainsSnug hidden at the core of things.For every year an autumn bringsTo round the root and fat the sheavesAnd haply garner queens and kingsWith falling rain and flying leaves.The rain is salt with tears of queensThe leaves are red with blood of kings;Unknowing what the mystery meansWe puzzle at these splendid things.For why great kings and rains should fall,And wherefore leaves and queens should fly,Or such rare wonders be at all,You cannot tell; no more can I.Yet this we know: new leaves and rainAnon shall crown the vernal scene,But dust of dynasts not againBlows up into a king or queen.
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Turn down a glass afore his place;Draw up the dog-eared chair;For though we shall not see his face,I think he will be hereOur wedding day to share.Turn up the glass where she would beAnd put a red rose there.Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see,But weren't they everywhere,And shall not they be here?Though them old blids are in the graveAnd their good light's gone out,We'd sooner their kind ghosties haveThan all the living routAs will be there no doubt.For some are dead as cannot die.Some flown as cannot flee.You still do fancy 'em near by.'Tis so with him and she,At any rate to we.
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