When I had wings, my brother,Such wings were mine as thine:Such life my heart remembersIn all as wild SeptembersAs this when life seems other,Though sweet, than once was mine;When I had wings, my brother,Such wings were mine as thine.Such life as thrills and quickensThe silence of thy flight,Or fills thy note's elationWith lordlier exultationThan man's, whose faint heart sickensWith hopes and fears that blightSuch life as thrills and quickensThe silence of thy flight.Thy cry from windward clangingMakes all the cliffs rejoice;Though storm clothe seas with sorrow,Thy call salutes the morrow;While shades of pain seem hangingRound earth's most rapturous voice,Thy cry from windward clangingMakes all the cliffs rejoice.We, sons and sires of seamen,Whose home is all the sea,What place man may, we claim it;But thine—whose thought may name it?Free birds live higher than freemen,And gladlier ye than we—We, sons and sires of seamen,Whose home is all the sea.For you the storm sounds onlyMore notes of more delightThan earth's in sunniest weather:When heaven and sea togetherJoin strengths against the lonelyLost bark borne down by night,For you the storm sounds onlyMore notes of more delight.With wider wing, and louderLong clarion-call of joy,Thy tribe salutes the terrorOf darkness, wild as error,But sure as truth, and prouderThan waves with man for toy;With wider wing, and louderLong clarion-call of joy.The wave's wing spreads and flutters,The wave's heart swells and breaks;One moment's passion thrills it,One pulse of power fulfils itAnd ends the pride it uttersWhen, loud with life that quakes,The wave's wing spreads and flutters,The wave's heart swells and breaks.But thine and thou, my brother,Keep heart and wing more highThan aught may scare or sunder;The waves whose throats are thunderFall hurtling each on other,And triumph as they die;But thine and thou, my brother,Keep heart and wing more high.More high than wrath or anguish,More strong than pride or fear,The sense or soul half hiddenIn thee, for us forbidden,Bids thee nor change nor languish,But live thy life as here,More high than wrath or anguish,More strong than pride or fear.We are fallen, even we, whose passionOn earth is nearest thine;Who sing, and cease from flying;Who live, and dream of dying:Grey time, in time's grey fashion,Bids wingless creatures pine:We are fallen, even we, whose passionOn earth is nearest thine.The lark knows no such rapture,Such joy no nightingale,As sways the songless measureWherein thy wings take pleasure:Thy love may no man capture,Thy pride may no man quail;The lark knows no such rapture,Such joy no nightingale.And we, whom dreams embolden,We can but creep and singAnd watch through heaven's waste hollowThe flight no sight may followTo the utter bourne beholdenOf none that lack thy wing:And we, whom dreams embolden,We can but creep and sing.Our dreams have wings that falter,Our hearts bear hopes that die;For thee no dream could betterA life no fears may fetter,A pride no care can alter,That wots not whence or whyOur dreams have wings that falter,Our hearts bear hopes that die.With joy more fierce and sweeterThan joys we deem divineTheir lives, by time untarnished,Are girt about and garnished,Who match the wave's full metreAnd drink the wind's wild wineWith joy more fierce and sweeterThan joys we deem divine.Ah, well were I for ever,Wouldst thou change lives with me,And take my song's wild honey,And give me back thy sunnyWide eyes that weary never,And wings that search the sea;Ah, well were I for ever,Wouldst thou change lives with me.Beachy Head: September 1886.
When I had wings, my brother,Such wings were mine as thine:Such life my heart remembersIn all as wild SeptembersAs this when life seems other,Though sweet, than once was mine;When I had wings, my brother,Such wings were mine as thine.
Such life as thrills and quickensThe silence of thy flight,Or fills thy note's elationWith lordlier exultationThan man's, whose faint heart sickensWith hopes and fears that blightSuch life as thrills and quickensThe silence of thy flight.
Thy cry from windward clangingMakes all the cliffs rejoice;Though storm clothe seas with sorrow,Thy call salutes the morrow;While shades of pain seem hangingRound earth's most rapturous voice,Thy cry from windward clangingMakes all the cliffs rejoice.
We, sons and sires of seamen,Whose home is all the sea,What place man may, we claim it;But thine—whose thought may name it?Free birds live higher than freemen,And gladlier ye than we—We, sons and sires of seamen,Whose home is all the sea.
For you the storm sounds onlyMore notes of more delightThan earth's in sunniest weather:When heaven and sea togetherJoin strengths against the lonelyLost bark borne down by night,For you the storm sounds onlyMore notes of more delight.
With wider wing, and louderLong clarion-call of joy,Thy tribe salutes the terrorOf darkness, wild as error,But sure as truth, and prouderThan waves with man for toy;With wider wing, and louderLong clarion-call of joy.
The wave's wing spreads and flutters,The wave's heart swells and breaks;One moment's passion thrills it,One pulse of power fulfils itAnd ends the pride it uttersWhen, loud with life that quakes,The wave's wing spreads and flutters,The wave's heart swells and breaks.
But thine and thou, my brother,Keep heart and wing more highThan aught may scare or sunder;The waves whose throats are thunderFall hurtling each on other,And triumph as they die;But thine and thou, my brother,Keep heart and wing more high.
More high than wrath or anguish,More strong than pride or fear,The sense or soul half hiddenIn thee, for us forbidden,Bids thee nor change nor languish,But live thy life as here,More high than wrath or anguish,More strong than pride or fear.
We are fallen, even we, whose passionOn earth is nearest thine;Who sing, and cease from flying;Who live, and dream of dying:Grey time, in time's grey fashion,Bids wingless creatures pine:We are fallen, even we, whose passionOn earth is nearest thine.
The lark knows no such rapture,Such joy no nightingale,As sways the songless measureWherein thy wings take pleasure:Thy love may no man capture,Thy pride may no man quail;The lark knows no such rapture,Such joy no nightingale.
And we, whom dreams embolden,We can but creep and singAnd watch through heaven's waste hollowThe flight no sight may followTo the utter bourne beholdenOf none that lack thy wing:And we, whom dreams embolden,We can but creep and sing.
Our dreams have wings that falter,Our hearts bear hopes that die;For thee no dream could betterA life no fears may fetter,A pride no care can alter,That wots not whence or whyOur dreams have wings that falter,Our hearts bear hopes that die.
With joy more fierce and sweeterThan joys we deem divineTheir lives, by time untarnished,Are girt about and garnished,Who match the wave's full metreAnd drink the wind's wild wineWith joy more fierce and sweeterThan joys we deem divine.
Ah, well were I for ever,Wouldst thou change lives with me,And take my song's wild honey,And give me back thy sunnyWide eyes that weary never,And wings that search the sea;Ah, well were I for ever,Wouldst thou change lives with me.
Beachy Head: September 1886.
THALASSIUSPan!PANO sea-stray, seed of Apollo,What word wouldst thou have with me?My ways thou wast fain to followOr ever the years hailed theeMan.NowIf August brood on the valleys,If satyrs laugh on the lawns,What part in the wildwood alleysHast thou with the fleet-foot fauns—Thou?See!Thy feet are a man's—not clovenLike these, not light as a boy's:The tresses and tendrils inwovenThat lure us, the lure of them cloysThee.UsThe joy of the wild woods neverLeaves free of the thirst it slakes:The wild love throbs in us everThat burns in the dense hot brakesThus.Life,Eternal, passionate, awless,Insatiable, mutable, dear,Makes all men's law for us lawless:We strive not: how should we fearStrife?We,The birds and the bright winds know notSuch joys as are ours in the mildWarm woodland; joys such as grow notIn waste green fields of the wildSea.No;Long since, in the world's wind veering,Thy heart was estranged from me:Sweet Echo shall yield thee not hearing:What have we to do with thee?Go.THALASSIUSAy!Such wrath on thy nostril quiversAs once in Sicilian heatBade herdsmen quail, and the riversShrank, leaving a path for thy feetDry?Nay,Low down in the hot soft hollowToo snakelike hisses thy spleen:"O sea-stray, seed of Apollo!"What ill hast thou heard or seen?Say.ManKnows well, if he hears beside himThe snarl of thy wrath at noon,What evil may soon betide him,Or late, if thou smite not soon,Pan.MeThe sound of thy flute, that flattersThe woods as they smile and sigh,Charmed fast as it charms thy satyrs,Can charm no faster than IThee.FastThy music may charm the splendidWide woodland silence to sleepWith sounds and dreams of thee blendedAnd whispers of waters that creepPast.HereThe spell of thee breathes and passesAnd bids the heart in me pause,Hushed soft as the leaves and the grassesAre hushed if the storm's foot drawsNear.YetThe panic that strikes down strangersTransgressing thy ways unawareAffrights not me nor endangersThrough dread of thy secret snareSet.PANWhenceMay man find heart to deride me?Who made his face as a starTo shine as a God's beside me?Nay, get thee away from us, farHence.THALASSIUSThenShall no man's heart, as he raisesA hymn to thy secret head,Wax great with the godhead he praises:Thou, God, shalt be like unto deadMen.PANGraceI take not of men's thanksgiving,I crave not of lips that live;They die, and behold, I am living,While they and their dead Gods givePlace.THALASSIUSYea:Too lightly the words were spokenThat mourned or mocked at thee dead:But whose was the word, the token,The song that answered and saidNay?PANWhoseBut mine, in the midnight hidden,Clothed round with the strength of nightAnd mysteries of things forbiddenFor all but the one most brightMuse?THALASSIUSHersOr thine, O Pan, was the tokenThat gave back empire to theeWhen power in thy hands lay brokenAs reeds that quake if a beeStirs?PANWhomHave I in my wide woods need of?Urania's limitless eyesBehold not mine end, though they read ofA word that shall speak to the skiesDoom.THALASSIUSSheGave back to thee kingdom and glory,And grace that was thine of yore,And life to thy leaves, late hoaryAs weeds cast up from the hoarSea.SongCan bid faith shine as the morningThough light in the world be none:Death shrinks if her tongue sound warning,Night quails, and beholds the sunStrong.PANNightBare rule over men for agesWhose worship wist not of meAnd gat but sorrows for wages,And hardly for tears could seeLight.CallNo more on the starry presenceWhose light through the long dark swam:Hold fast to the green world's pleasance:For I that am lord of it amAll.THALASSIUSGod,God Pan, from the glad wood's portalThe breaths of thy song blow sweet:But woods may be walked in of mortalMan's thought, where never thy feetTrod.ThineAll secrets of growth and of birth are,All glories of flower and of tree,Wheresoever the wonders of earth are;The words of the spell of the seaMine.
THALASSIUS
Pan!
PAN
O sea-stray, seed of Apollo,What word wouldst thou have with me?My ways thou wast fain to followOr ever the years hailed theeMan.
NowIf August brood on the valleys,If satyrs laugh on the lawns,What part in the wildwood alleysHast thou with the fleet-foot fauns—Thou?
See!Thy feet are a man's—not clovenLike these, not light as a boy's:The tresses and tendrils inwovenThat lure us, the lure of them cloysThee.
UsThe joy of the wild woods neverLeaves free of the thirst it slakes:The wild love throbs in us everThat burns in the dense hot brakesThus.
Life,Eternal, passionate, awless,Insatiable, mutable, dear,Makes all men's law for us lawless:We strive not: how should we fearStrife?
We,The birds and the bright winds know notSuch joys as are ours in the mildWarm woodland; joys such as grow notIn waste green fields of the wildSea.
No;Long since, in the world's wind veering,Thy heart was estranged from me:Sweet Echo shall yield thee not hearing:What have we to do with thee?Go.
THALASSIUS
Ay!Such wrath on thy nostril quiversAs once in Sicilian heatBade herdsmen quail, and the riversShrank, leaving a path for thy feetDry?
Nay,Low down in the hot soft hollowToo snakelike hisses thy spleen:"O sea-stray, seed of Apollo!"What ill hast thou heard or seen?Say.
ManKnows well, if he hears beside himThe snarl of thy wrath at noon,What evil may soon betide him,Or late, if thou smite not soon,Pan.
MeThe sound of thy flute, that flattersThe woods as they smile and sigh,Charmed fast as it charms thy satyrs,Can charm no faster than IThee.
FastThy music may charm the splendidWide woodland silence to sleepWith sounds and dreams of thee blendedAnd whispers of waters that creepPast.
HereThe spell of thee breathes and passesAnd bids the heart in me pause,Hushed soft as the leaves and the grassesAre hushed if the storm's foot drawsNear.
YetThe panic that strikes down strangersTransgressing thy ways unawareAffrights not me nor endangersThrough dread of thy secret snareSet.
PAN
WhenceMay man find heart to deride me?Who made his face as a starTo shine as a God's beside me?Nay, get thee away from us, farHence.
THALASSIUS
ThenShall no man's heart, as he raisesA hymn to thy secret head,Wax great with the godhead he praises:Thou, God, shalt be like unto deadMen.
PAN
GraceI take not of men's thanksgiving,I crave not of lips that live;They die, and behold, I am living,While they and their dead Gods givePlace.
THALASSIUS
Yea:Too lightly the words were spokenThat mourned or mocked at thee dead:But whose was the word, the token,The song that answered and saidNay?
PAN
WhoseBut mine, in the midnight hidden,Clothed round with the strength of nightAnd mysteries of things forbiddenFor all but the one most brightMuse?
THALASSIUS
HersOr thine, O Pan, was the tokenThat gave back empire to theeWhen power in thy hands lay brokenAs reeds that quake if a beeStirs?
PAN
WhomHave I in my wide woods need of?Urania's limitless eyesBehold not mine end, though they read ofA word that shall speak to the skiesDoom.
THALASSIUS
SheGave back to thee kingdom and glory,And grace that was thine of yore,And life to thy leaves, late hoaryAs weeds cast up from the hoarSea.
SongCan bid faith shine as the morningThough light in the world be none:Death shrinks if her tongue sound warning,Night quails, and beholds the sunStrong.
PAN
NightBare rule over men for agesWhose worship wist not of meAnd gat but sorrows for wages,And hardly for tears could seeLight.
CallNo more on the starry presenceWhose light through the long dark swam:Hold fast to the green world's pleasance:For I that am lord of it amAll.
THALASSIUS
God,God Pan, from the glad wood's portalThe breaths of thy song blow sweet:But woods may be walked in of mortalMan's thought, where never thy feetTrod.
ThineAll secrets of growth and of birth are,All glories of flower and of tree,Wheresoever the wonders of earth are;The words of the spell of the seaMine.
Like a queen enchanted who may not laugh or weep,Glad at heart and guarded from change and care like ours,Girt about with beauty by days and nights that creepSoft as breathless ripples that softly shoreward sweep,Lies the lovely city whose grace no grief deflowers.Age and grey forgetfulness, time that shifts and veers,Touch not thee, our fairest, whose charm no rival nears,Hailed as England's Florence of one whose praise gives grace,Landor, once thy lover, a name that love reveres:Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.Dawn whereof we know not, and noon whose fruit we reap,Garnered up in record of years that fell like flowers,Sunset liker sunrise along the shining steepWhence thy fair face lightens, and where thy soft springs leap,Crown at once and gird thee with grace of guardian powersLoved of men beloved of us, souls that fame inspheres,All thine air hath music for him who dreams and hears;Voices mixed of multitudes, feet of friends that pace,Witness why for ever, if heaven's face clouds or clears,Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.Peace hath here found harbourage mild as very sleep:Not the hills and waters, the fields and wildwood bowers,Smile or speak more tenderly, clothed with peace more deep,Here than memory whispers of days our memories keepFast with love and laughter and dreams of withered hours.Bright were these as blossom of old, and thought endearsStill the fair soft phantoms that pass with smiles or tears,Sweet as roseleaves hoarded and dried wherein we traceStill the soul and spirit of sense that lives and cheers:Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.City lulled asleep by the chime of passing years,Sweeter smiles thy rest than the radiance round thy peers;Only love and lovely remembrance here have place.Time on thee lies lighter than music on men's ears;Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.
Like a queen enchanted who may not laugh or weep,Glad at heart and guarded from change and care like ours,Girt about with beauty by days and nights that creepSoft as breathless ripples that softly shoreward sweep,Lies the lovely city whose grace no grief deflowers.Age and grey forgetfulness, time that shifts and veers,Touch not thee, our fairest, whose charm no rival nears,Hailed as England's Florence of one whose praise gives grace,Landor, once thy lover, a name that love reveres:Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.
Dawn whereof we know not, and noon whose fruit we reap,Garnered up in record of years that fell like flowers,Sunset liker sunrise along the shining steepWhence thy fair face lightens, and where thy soft springs leap,Crown at once and gird thee with grace of guardian powersLoved of men beloved of us, souls that fame inspheres,All thine air hath music for him who dreams and hears;Voices mixed of multitudes, feet of friends that pace,Witness why for ever, if heaven's face clouds or clears,Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.
Peace hath here found harbourage mild as very sleep:Not the hills and waters, the fields and wildwood bowers,Smile or speak more tenderly, clothed with peace more deep,Here than memory whispers of days our memories keepFast with love and laughter and dreams of withered hours.Bright were these as blossom of old, and thought endearsStill the fair soft phantoms that pass with smiles or tears,Sweet as roseleaves hoarded and dried wherein we traceStill the soul and spirit of sense that lives and cheers:Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.
City lulled asleep by the chime of passing years,Sweeter smiles thy rest than the radiance round thy peers;Only love and lovely remembrance here have place.Time on thee lies lighter than music on men's ears;Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.
Baby, see the flowers!—Baby seesFairer things than these,Fairer though they be than dreams of ours.Baby, hear the birds!—Baby knowsBetter songs than those,Sweeter though they sound than sweetest words.Baby, see the moon!—Baby's eyesLaugh to watch it rise,Answering light with love and night with noon.Baby, hear the sea!—Baby's faceTakes a graver grace,Touched with wonder what the sound may be.Baby, see the star!—Baby's handOpens, warm and bland,Calm in claim of all things fair that are.Baby, hear the bells!—Baby's headBows, as ripe for bed,Now the flowers curl round and close their cells.Baby, flower of light,Sleep, and seeBrighter dreams than we,Till good day shall smile away good night.
Baby, see the flowers!—Baby seesFairer things than these,Fairer though they be than dreams of ours.
Baby, hear the birds!—Baby knowsBetter songs than those,Sweeter though they sound than sweetest words.
Baby, see the moon!—Baby's eyesLaugh to watch it rise,Answering light with love and night with noon.
Baby, hear the sea!—Baby's faceTakes a graver grace,Touched with wonder what the sound may be.
Baby, see the star!—Baby's handOpens, warm and bland,Calm in claim of all things fair that are.
Baby, hear the bells!—Baby's headBows, as ripe for bed,Now the flowers curl round and close their cells.
Baby, flower of light,Sleep, and seeBrighter dreams than we,Till good day shall smile away good night.
Babe, if rhyme be noneFor that sweet small wordBabe, the sweetest oneEver heard,Right it is and meetRhyme should keep not trueTime with such a sweetThing as you.Meet it is that rhymeShould not gain such grace:What is April's primeTo your face?What to yours is May'sRosiest smile? what soundLike your laughter swaysAll hearts round?None can tell in metreFit for ears on earthWhat sweet star grew sweeterAt your birth.Wisdom doubts what may be:Hope, with smile sublime,Trusts: but neither, baby,Knows the rhyme.Wisdom lies down lonely;Hope keeps watch from far;None but one seer onlySees the star.Love alone, with yearningHeart for astrolabe,Takes the star's height, burningO'er the babe.
Babe, if rhyme be noneFor that sweet small wordBabe, the sweetest oneEver heard,
Right it is and meetRhyme should keep not trueTime with such a sweetThing as you.
Meet it is that rhymeShould not gain such grace:What is April's primeTo your face?
What to yours is May'sRosiest smile? what soundLike your laughter swaysAll hearts round?
None can tell in metreFit for ears on earthWhat sweet star grew sweeterAt your birth.
Wisdom doubts what may be:Hope, with smile sublime,Trusts: but neither, baby,Knows the rhyme.
Wisdom lies down lonely;Hope keeps watch from far;None but one seer onlySees the star.
Love alone, with yearningHeart for astrolabe,Takes the star's height, burningO'er the babe.
Baby-bird, baby-bird,Ne'er a song on earthMay be heard, may be heard,Rich as yours in mirth.All your flickering fingers,All your twinkling toes,Play like light that lingersTill the clear song close.Baby-bird, baby-bird,Your grave majestic eyesLike a bird's warbled wordsSpeak, and sorrow dies.Sorrow dies for love's sake,Love grows one with mirth,Even for one white dove's sake,Born a babe on earth.Baby-bird, baby-bird,Chirping loud and long,Other birds hush their words,Hearkening toward your song.Sweet as spring though it ring,Full of love's own lures,Weak and wrong sounds their song,Singing after yours.Baby-bird, baby-bird,The happy heart that hearsSeems to win back withinHeaven, and cast out fears.Earth and sun seem as oneSweet light and one sweet wordKnown of none here but one,Known of one sweet bird.
Baby-bird, baby-bird,Ne'er a song on earthMay be heard, may be heard,Rich as yours in mirth.
All your flickering fingers,All your twinkling toes,Play like light that lingersTill the clear song close.
Baby-bird, baby-bird,Your grave majestic eyesLike a bird's warbled wordsSpeak, and sorrow dies.
Sorrow dies for love's sake,Love grows one with mirth,Even for one white dove's sake,Born a babe on earth.
Baby-bird, baby-bird,Chirping loud and long,Other birds hush their words,Hearkening toward your song.
Sweet as spring though it ring,Full of love's own lures,Weak and wrong sounds their song,Singing after yours.
Baby-bird, baby-bird,The happy heart that hearsSeems to win back withinHeaven, and cast out fears.
Earth and sun seem as oneSweet light and one sweet wordKnown of none here but one,Known of one sweet bird.
IWho may praise her?Eyes where midnight shames the sun,Hair of night and sunshine spun,Woven of dawn's or twilight's loom,Radiant darkness, lustrous gloom,Godlike childhood's flowerlike bloom,None may praise aright, nor singHalf the grace wherewith like springLove arrays her.IILove untoldSings in silence, speaks in lightShed from each fair feature, brightStill from heaven, whence toward us, nowNine years since, she deigned to bowDown the brightness of her brow,Deigned to pass through mortal birth:Reverence calls her, here on earth,Nine years old.IIILove's deep duty,Even when love transfigured growsWorship, all too surely knowsHow, though love may cast out fear,Yet the debt divine and dearDue to childhood's godhead hereMay by love of man be paidNever; never song be madeWorth its beauty.IVNought is allSung or said or dreamed or thoughtEver, set beside it; noughtAll the love that man may give—Love whose prayer should be, "Forgive!"Heaven, we see, on earth may live;Earth can thank not heaven, we know,Save with songs that ebb and flow,Rise and fall.VNo man living,No man dead, save haply oneNow gone homeward past the sun,Ever found such grace as mightTune his tongue to praise arightChildren, flowers of love and light,Whom our praise dispraises: weSing, in sooth, but not as heSang thanksgiving.VIHope that smiled,Seeing her new-born beauty, madeOut of heaven's own light and shade,Smiled not half so sweetly: love,Seeing the sun, afar above,Warm the nest that rears the dove,Sees, more bright than moon or sun,All the heaven of heavens in oneLittle child.VIIWho may sing her?Wings of angels when they stirMake no music worthy her:Sweeter sound her shy soft wordsHere than songs of God's own birdsWhom the fire of rapture girdsRound with light from love's face lit;Hands of angels find no fitGifts to bring her.VIIIBabes at birthWear as raiment round them cast,Keep as witness toward their past,Tokens left of heaven; and each,Ere its lips learn mortal speech,Ere sweet heaven pass on pass reach,Bears in undiverted eyesProof of unforgotten skiesHere on earth.IXQuenched as embersQuenched with flakes of rain or snowTill the last faint flame burns low,All those lustrous memories lieDead with babyhood gone by:Yet in her they dare not die:Others, fair as heaven is, yet,Now they share not heaven, forget:She remembers.
I
Who may praise her?Eyes where midnight shames the sun,Hair of night and sunshine spun,Woven of dawn's or twilight's loom,Radiant darkness, lustrous gloom,Godlike childhood's flowerlike bloom,None may praise aright, nor singHalf the grace wherewith like springLove arrays her.
II
Love untoldSings in silence, speaks in lightShed from each fair feature, brightStill from heaven, whence toward us, nowNine years since, she deigned to bowDown the brightness of her brow,Deigned to pass through mortal birth:Reverence calls her, here on earth,Nine years old.
III
Love's deep duty,Even when love transfigured growsWorship, all too surely knowsHow, though love may cast out fear,Yet the debt divine and dearDue to childhood's godhead hereMay by love of man be paidNever; never song be madeWorth its beauty.
IV
Nought is allSung or said or dreamed or thoughtEver, set beside it; noughtAll the love that man may give—Love whose prayer should be, "Forgive!"Heaven, we see, on earth may live;Earth can thank not heaven, we know,Save with songs that ebb and flow,Rise and fall.
V
No man living,No man dead, save haply oneNow gone homeward past the sun,Ever found such grace as mightTune his tongue to praise arightChildren, flowers of love and light,Whom our praise dispraises: weSing, in sooth, but not as heSang thanksgiving.
VI
Hope that smiled,Seeing her new-born beauty, madeOut of heaven's own light and shade,Smiled not half so sweetly: love,Seeing the sun, afar above,Warm the nest that rears the dove,Sees, more bright than moon or sun,All the heaven of heavens in oneLittle child.
VII
Who may sing her?Wings of angels when they stirMake no music worthy her:Sweeter sound her shy soft wordsHere than songs of God's own birdsWhom the fire of rapture girdsRound with light from love's face lit;Hands of angels find no fitGifts to bring her.
VIII
Babes at birthWear as raiment round them cast,Keep as witness toward their past,Tokens left of heaven; and each,Ere its lips learn mortal speech,Ere sweet heaven pass on pass reach,Bears in undiverted eyesProof of unforgotten skiesHere on earth.
IX
Quenched as embersQuenched with flakes of rain or snowTill the last faint flame burns low,All those lustrous memories lieDead with babyhood gone by:Yet in her they dare not die:Others, fair as heaven is, yet,Now they share not heaven, forget:She remembers.
Lord of days and nights that hear thy word of wintry warning,Wind, whose feet are set on ways that none may tread,Change the nest wherein thy wings are fledged for flight by morning,Change the harbour whence at dawn thy sails are spread.Not the dawn, ere yet the imprisoning night has half released her,More desires the sun's full face of cheer, than we,Well as yet we love the strength of the iron-tongued north-easter,Yearn for wind to meet us as we front the sea.All thy ways are good, O wind, and all the world should fester,Were thy fourfold godhead quenched, or stilled thy strife:Yet the waves and we desire too long the deep south-wester,Whence the waters quicken shoreward, clothed with life.Yet the field not made for ploughing save of keels nor harrowingSave of storm-winds lies unbrightened by thy breath:Banded broad with ruddy samphire glow the sea-banks narrowingWestward, while the sea gleams chill and still as death.Sharp and strange from inland sounds thy bitter note of battle,Blown between grim skies and waters sullen-souled,Till the baffled seas bear back, rocks roar and shingles rattle,Vexed and angered and anhungered and acold.Change thy note, and give the waves their will, and all the measure,Full and perfect, of the music of their might,Let it fill the bays with thunderous notes and throbs of pleasure,Shake the shores with passion, sound at once and smite.Sweet are even the mild low notes of wind and sea, but sweeterSounds the song whose choral wrath of raging rhymeBids the shelving shoals keep tune with storm's imperious metre,Bids the rocks and reefs respond in rapturous chime.Sweet the lisp and lulling whisper and luxurious laughter,Soft as love or sleep, of waves whereon the sunDreams, and dreams not of the darkling hours before nor after,Winged with cloud whose wrath shall bid love's day be done.Yet shall darkness bring the awakening sea a lordlier lover,Clothed with strength more amorous and more strenuous will,Whence her heart of hearts shall kindle and her soul recoverSense of love too keen to lie for love's sake still.Let thy strong south-western music sound, and bid the billowsBrighten, proud and glad to feel thy scourge and kissSting and soothe and sway them, bowed as aspens bend or willows,Yet resurgent still in breathless rage of bliss.All to-day the slow sleek ripples hardly bear up shoreward,Charged with sighs more light than laughter, faint and fair,Like a woodland lake's weak wavelets lightly lingering forward,Soft and listless as the slumber-stricken air.Be the sunshine bared or veiled, the sky superb or shrouded,Still the waters, lax and languid, chafed and foiled,Keen and thwarted, pale and patient, clothed with fire or clouded,Vex their heart in vain, or sleep like serpents coiled.Thee they look for, blind and baffled, wan with wrath and weary,Blown for ever back by winds that rock the bird:Winds that seamews breast subdue the sea, and bid the drearyWaves be weak as hearts made sick with hope deferred.Let thy clarion sound from westward, let the south bear tokenHow the glories of thy godhead sound and shine:Bid the land rejoice to see the land-wind's broad wings broken,Bid the sea take comfort, bid the world be thine.Half the world abhors thee beating back the sea, and blackeningHeaven with fierce and woful change of fluctuant form:All the world acclaims thee shifting sail again, and slackeningCloud by cloud the close-reefed cordage of the storm.Sweeter fields and brighter woods and lordlier hills than wakenHere at sunrise never hailed the sun and thee:Turn thee then, and give them comfort, shed like rain and shakenFar as foam that laughs and leaps along the sea.
Lord of days and nights that hear thy word of wintry warning,Wind, whose feet are set on ways that none may tread,Change the nest wherein thy wings are fledged for flight by morning,Change the harbour whence at dawn thy sails are spread.Not the dawn, ere yet the imprisoning night has half released her,More desires the sun's full face of cheer, than we,Well as yet we love the strength of the iron-tongued north-easter,Yearn for wind to meet us as we front the sea.All thy ways are good, O wind, and all the world should fester,Were thy fourfold godhead quenched, or stilled thy strife:Yet the waves and we desire too long the deep south-wester,Whence the waters quicken shoreward, clothed with life.Yet the field not made for ploughing save of keels nor harrowingSave of storm-winds lies unbrightened by thy breath:Banded broad with ruddy samphire glow the sea-banks narrowingWestward, while the sea gleams chill and still as death.Sharp and strange from inland sounds thy bitter note of battle,Blown between grim skies and waters sullen-souled,Till the baffled seas bear back, rocks roar and shingles rattle,Vexed and angered and anhungered and acold.Change thy note, and give the waves their will, and all the measure,Full and perfect, of the music of their might,Let it fill the bays with thunderous notes and throbs of pleasure,Shake the shores with passion, sound at once and smite.Sweet are even the mild low notes of wind and sea, but sweeterSounds the song whose choral wrath of raging rhymeBids the shelving shoals keep tune with storm's imperious metre,Bids the rocks and reefs respond in rapturous chime.Sweet the lisp and lulling whisper and luxurious laughter,Soft as love or sleep, of waves whereon the sunDreams, and dreams not of the darkling hours before nor after,Winged with cloud whose wrath shall bid love's day be done.Yet shall darkness bring the awakening sea a lordlier lover,Clothed with strength more amorous and more strenuous will,Whence her heart of hearts shall kindle and her soul recoverSense of love too keen to lie for love's sake still.Let thy strong south-western music sound, and bid the billowsBrighten, proud and glad to feel thy scourge and kissSting and soothe and sway them, bowed as aspens bend or willows,Yet resurgent still in breathless rage of bliss.All to-day the slow sleek ripples hardly bear up shoreward,Charged with sighs more light than laughter, faint and fair,Like a woodland lake's weak wavelets lightly lingering forward,Soft and listless as the slumber-stricken air.Be the sunshine bared or veiled, the sky superb or shrouded,Still the waters, lax and languid, chafed and foiled,Keen and thwarted, pale and patient, clothed with fire or clouded,Vex their heart in vain, or sleep like serpents coiled.Thee they look for, blind and baffled, wan with wrath and weary,Blown for ever back by winds that rock the bird:Winds that seamews breast subdue the sea, and bid the drearyWaves be weak as hearts made sick with hope deferred.Let thy clarion sound from westward, let the south bear tokenHow the glories of thy godhead sound and shine:Bid the land rejoice to see the land-wind's broad wings broken,Bid the sea take comfort, bid the world be thine.Half the world abhors thee beating back the sea, and blackeningHeaven with fierce and woful change of fluctuant form:All the world acclaims thee shifting sail again, and slackeningCloud by cloud the close-reefed cordage of the storm.Sweeter fields and brighter woods and lordlier hills than wakenHere at sunrise never hailed the sun and thee:Turn thee then, and give them comfort, shed like rain and shakenFar as foam that laughs and leaps along the sea.
Far off is the sea, and the land is afar:The low banks reach at the sky,Seen hence, and are heavenward high;Though light for the leap of a boy they are,And the far sea late was nigh.The fair wild fields and the circling downs,The bright sweet marshes and meadsAll glorious with flowerlike weeds,The great grey churches, the sea-washed towns,Recede as a dream recedes.The world draws back, and the world's light wanes,As a dream dies down and is dead;And the clouds and the gleams overheadChange, and change; and the sea remains,A shadow of dreamlike dread.Wild, and woful, and pale, and grey,A shadow of sleepless fear,A corpse with the night for bier,The fairest thing that beholds the dayLies haggard and hopeless here.And the wind's wings, broken and spent, subside;And the dumb waste world is hoar,And strange as the sea the shore;And shadows of shapeless dreams abideWhere life may abide no more.A sail to seaward, a sound from shoreward,And the spell were broken that seemsTo reign in a world of dreamsWhere vainly the dreamer's feet make forwardAnd vainly the low sky gleams.The sea-forsaken forlorn deep-wrinkledSalt slanting stretches of sandThat slope to the seaward hand,Were they fain of the ripples that flashed and twinkledAnd laughed as they struck the strand?As bells on the reins of the fairies ringThe ripples that kissed them rang,The light from the sundawn sprang,And the sweetest of songs that the world may singWas theirs when the full sea sang.Now no light is in heaven; and nowNot a note of the sea-wind's tuneRings hither: the bleak sky's boonGrants hardly sight of a grey sun's brow—A sun more sad than the moon.More sad than a moon that clouds beleaguerAnd storm is a scourge to smite,The sick sun's shadowlike lightGrows faint as the clouds and the waves wax eager,And withers away from sight.The day's heart cowers, and the night's heart quickens:Full fain would the day be deadAnd the stark night reign in his stead:The sea falls dumb as the sea-fog thickensAnd the sunset dies for dread.Outside of the range of time, whose breathIs keen as the manslayer's knifeAnd his peace but a truce for strife,Who knows if haply the shadow of deathMay be not the light of life?For the storm and the rain and the darkness borrowBut an hour from the suns to be,But a strange swift passage, that weMay rejoice, who have mourned not to-day, to-morrow,In the sun and the wind and the sea.
Far off is the sea, and the land is afar:The low banks reach at the sky,Seen hence, and are heavenward high;Though light for the leap of a boy they are,And the far sea late was nigh.
The fair wild fields and the circling downs,The bright sweet marshes and meadsAll glorious with flowerlike weeds,The great grey churches, the sea-washed towns,Recede as a dream recedes.
The world draws back, and the world's light wanes,As a dream dies down and is dead;And the clouds and the gleams overheadChange, and change; and the sea remains,A shadow of dreamlike dread.
Wild, and woful, and pale, and grey,A shadow of sleepless fear,A corpse with the night for bier,The fairest thing that beholds the dayLies haggard and hopeless here.
And the wind's wings, broken and spent, subside;And the dumb waste world is hoar,And strange as the sea the shore;And shadows of shapeless dreams abideWhere life may abide no more.
A sail to seaward, a sound from shoreward,And the spell were broken that seemsTo reign in a world of dreamsWhere vainly the dreamer's feet make forwardAnd vainly the low sky gleams.
The sea-forsaken forlorn deep-wrinkledSalt slanting stretches of sandThat slope to the seaward hand,Were they fain of the ripples that flashed and twinkledAnd laughed as they struck the strand?
As bells on the reins of the fairies ringThe ripples that kissed them rang,The light from the sundawn sprang,And the sweetest of songs that the world may singWas theirs when the full sea sang.
Now no light is in heaven; and nowNot a note of the sea-wind's tuneRings hither: the bleak sky's boonGrants hardly sight of a grey sun's brow—A sun more sad than the moon.
More sad than a moon that clouds beleaguerAnd storm is a scourge to smite,The sick sun's shadowlike lightGrows faint as the clouds and the waves wax eager,And withers away from sight.
The day's heart cowers, and the night's heart quickens:Full fain would the day be deadAnd the stark night reign in his stead:The sea falls dumb as the sea-fog thickensAnd the sunset dies for dread.
Outside of the range of time, whose breathIs keen as the manslayer's knifeAnd his peace but a truce for strife,Who knows if haply the shadow of deathMay be not the light of life?
For the storm and the rain and the darkness borrowBut an hour from the suns to be,But a strange swift passage, that weMay rejoice, who have mourned not to-day, to-morrow,In the sun and the wind and the sea.
Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow,Earth had heaven to friend, and heaven had earth to fellow,When we met where wooded hills and meadows meet.Autumn's face is pale, and all her late leaves yellow,Now that here again we greet.Wan with years whereof this eightieth nears December,Fair and bright with love, the kind old face I knowShines above the sweet small twain whose eyes rememberHeaven, and fill with April's light this pale November,Though the dark year's glass run low.Like a rose whose joy of life her silence uttersWhen the birds are loud, and low the lulled wind mutters,Grave and silent shines the boy nigh three years old.Wise and sweet his smile, that falters not nor flutters,Glows, and turns the gloom to gold.Like the new-born sun's that strikes the dark and slays it,So that even for love of light it smiles and dies,Laughs the boy's blithe face whose fair fourth year arrays itAll with light of life and mirth that stirs and sways itAnd fulfils the deep wide eyes.Wide and warm with glowing laughter's exultation,Full of welcome, full of sunbright jubilation,Flash my taller friend's quick eyebeams, charged with glee;But with softer still and sweeter salutationShine my smaller friend's on me.Little arms flung round my bending neck, that yoke itFast in tender bondage, draw my face down tooToward the flower-soft face whose dumb deep smiles invoke it;Dumb, but love can read the radiant eyes that woke it,Blue as June's mid heaven is blue.How may men find refuge, how should hearts be shielded,From the weapons thus by little children wielded,When they lift such eyes as light this lustrous face—Eyes that woke love sleeping unawares, and yieldedLove for love, a gift of grace,Grace beyond man's merit, love that laughs, forgivingEven the sin of being no more a child, nor worthTrust and love that lavish gifts above man's giving,Touch or glance of eyes and lips the sweetest living,Fair as heaven and kind as earth?
Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow,Earth had heaven to friend, and heaven had earth to fellow,When we met where wooded hills and meadows meet.Autumn's face is pale, and all her late leaves yellow,Now that here again we greet.
Wan with years whereof this eightieth nears December,Fair and bright with love, the kind old face I knowShines above the sweet small twain whose eyes rememberHeaven, and fill with April's light this pale November,Though the dark year's glass run low.
Like a rose whose joy of life her silence uttersWhen the birds are loud, and low the lulled wind mutters,Grave and silent shines the boy nigh three years old.Wise and sweet his smile, that falters not nor flutters,Glows, and turns the gloom to gold.
Like the new-born sun's that strikes the dark and slays it,So that even for love of light it smiles and dies,Laughs the boy's blithe face whose fair fourth year arrays itAll with light of life and mirth that stirs and sways itAnd fulfils the deep wide eyes.
Wide and warm with glowing laughter's exultation,Full of welcome, full of sunbright jubilation,Flash my taller friend's quick eyebeams, charged with glee;But with softer still and sweeter salutationShine my smaller friend's on me.
Little arms flung round my bending neck, that yoke itFast in tender bondage, draw my face down tooToward the flower-soft face whose dumb deep smiles invoke it;Dumb, but love can read the radiant eyes that woke it,Blue as June's mid heaven is blue.
How may men find refuge, how should hearts be shielded,From the weapons thus by little children wielded,When they lift such eyes as light this lustrous face—Eyes that woke love sleeping unawares, and yieldedLove for love, a gift of grace,
Grace beyond man's merit, love that laughs, forgivingEven the sin of being no more a child, nor worthTrust and love that lavish gifts above man's giving,Touch or glance of eyes and lips the sweetest living,Fair as heaven and kind as earth?