As dreamers through their dreams surmiseThe stealthy passage of the night,We half-remember smoky skiesAnd city streets and hurrying flight,Another world from this clear heightWhereon our starry altars rise.
Beneath our towering waste of stoneThe fragile ships creep to and fro,By tempest riven and overthrown,The toys of these same tides that flowAgainst our pillars far belowWith faint, insistent monotone.
The snarling winds against our rocksHurl breakers in a fleecy mass,Like wolves that chase stampeding flocksOver the brink of a crevasse,While thunders down the Alpine passThe deluge of the equinox.
Lost in that stormy atmosphere,Men chart their seas and trudge their roads;Inviolate, we scorn to hearTheir shouted warning that forebodes
An end to these fair episodesOf life beneath our tranquil sky;Having sought only peace, then whyShould we go down to death with fear?
Pomfret, 1920
The thinkers light their lamps in rowsFrom street to street, and thenThe night creeps up behind, and blowsThem quickly out again.
While Age limps groping toward his home,Hearing the feet of youthFrom dark to dark that sadly roamThe suburbs of the Truth.
Paris, 1919
I pass my days in ghostly presences,And when the wind at night is mute,Far down the valley I can hear a fluteAnd a strange voice, not knowing what it says.
And sometimes in the interim of days,I hear a fountain in obscure abodes,Singing with none but me to hear, the laysThat would do pleasure to the ears of gods.
And faces pass, but haply they are dreams,Dreams of a mind set free that gildsThe solitude with awful light and buildsTemples and lovers, goblins and triremes.
Give me a chair and liberate the sun,And glancing motes to twinkle down its bars,That I may sit above oblivion,And weave myself a universe of stars.
Rome, 1918
Each mote that staggers down the sunRepeats an ancient monotoneThat minds me of the time when IPut out the candles one by one,
And left no splendour on the faceOf Him who found His resting-placeUpon the Cross; and then I wentOut on the desert's empty space,
And heard the wind in monotoneBlow grains of sand against a stone,Until I sang aloud, to breakThe fear of wandering alone.
There is no fear left in my soul,But when, to-day, an aureoleOf sunlight gathered on your hair,And winking motes fled here and there,Like notes of music in the air,Suddenly I felt the windWake on the desert as I stoleOut of that desecrated shrine,And then I wondered if you sinnedAs part of me, or if the wholeDark sacrilege were mine.
Cambridge, 1917
He is a priest;He feeds the dead;He sings the feast;He veils his head;The words are dreadIn morning mist,But the wine is redIn the Eucharist.
Red as the eastWith sunlight spreadLike a bleeding beastOn a purple bed.O Someone fledFrom an April tryst,Were your lips fedIn the Eucharist?
I, at least,When the voice of leadSank down and ceased,Knew the things he said.That the god who bled,And the god we kissed,Shall never wedIn the Eucharist.
Spring, give the breadWe sought and missed,And wine unshedIn the Eucharist.
Paris, 1919
Through hissing snow, through rain, through many hundred Mays,Contorted in Promethean jest, the gargoyles sit,And watch the crowds pursue the charted ways,Whose source is birth, whose end they only know.Charms borrowed from the loveliest of hells,And from the earth, a rhapsody of wit,They hear the sacramental bellsChime through the towers, and they smile.Smile on the insects in the square below,Smile on the stars that kiss the infinite,And, when the clouds hang low, they gaily spoutGrey water on the heads of the devoutThat gather, whispering, in the sabbath street.O gargoyles! was the vinegar and bileSo bitter? Was the eucharist so sweet?
Paris, 1919
Gods dine on prayer and sacred song,And go to sleep between;The gods have slumbered long;The gods are getting lean.
Sheffield, 1917
A smile will turn away green eyesThat laughter could not touch,The dangers of those subtleties,The stealthy, clever hand,Should not affright you overmuchIf you but understandHow Judas, clad in Oxford grey,—Could walk abroad on Easter Day.
Paris, 1919
Two Kings there were, one Good, one Bad;The first was mournfulness itself,The second, happy as a lad,—And both are dust upon a shelf.
Sheffield, 1917
I see that Hermes unawares,Has left his footprints on the path;See here, he fell, and in his wrathHe pulled out several golden hairsAgainst the brambles. Guard them well,The hairs of gods are valuable.
Paris, 1919
Semiramis, the whore of Babylon,Bade me go walking with her. I obeyed.Philosophy, I thought, is not afraidOf any woman underneath the sun.Far up the hills she led me, where one ledgeThrust out a slender finger to the sky,Dizzy and swaying as an eagle's cry;Semiramis stepped to the farthest edge.
And there she danced, whirling upon her toes,The triumph of a flame was in her face,Faster and faster as the mad wind blows,She whirled, and slipped, and dashed down into space….Next day I saw her smiling in the sun,Semiramis, the Queen of Babylon.
Paris, 1919
Bring hemlock, black as Cretan cheese,And mix a sacramental brew;A worthy drink for Socrates,Why not for you?
Sheffield, 1917
Walking through the town last night,I learned the lore of second sight,And saw through all those solid walls,Imbecile and troglodyte.
The vicious apes of either sexGrinned and mouthed and stretched their necks,Their little lusts skipped back and forth,Not very pretty or complex.
Each has five senses; every senseIs like a false gate in a fence,They think the gates are bona fide,Such is their only innocence.
And think themselves extremely wiseWhen any sense records its lies,They mumble what they feel or hear,Unmindful still of Paradise.
When I walked through the town last nightIn vain they drew their curtains tight,Through walls of brick I plainly sawThe imbecile, the troglodyte.
Paris, 1919
The change of many tides has swung the flowOf those green weeds that cling like filthy furUpon the timbers of this voyagerThat sank in the clear water long ago.Whence did she sail? the sands of ages blurThe answer to the secret, and as thoughThey mocked and knew, sleek fishes, to and fro,Trail their grey carrion shadows over her.Coffer of all life gives and hides away,It matters not if London or if TyreSped you to sea on some remoter day;Beneath your decks immutable desireAnd hope and hate and envy still conspire,While all the gaping faces nod and sway.
Brussels, 1919
Piero di Cosimo,Your unicorns and afterglow,Your black leaves cut against the sky,Black crosses where the young gods die,Black horizons where the seaAnd clouds contend perpetually,And hanging low,The menace of the night:—
They called you madman. Were they right,Piero di Cosimo?
Pomfret, 1919
I would know what can not be known;I would reach beyond my sphere,And question the stars in their courses,And the dead of many a year.I would tame the infinite forcesThat bend me down like the grain,Peace would I give to the fields where the young men died,Peace to the sea where the ships of battle ride,And light again to the eyes of the beautiful slain.
This would I do, but today against the sky,They who were building a cross grinned as I passed them by.
Pomfret, 1919
The yellow bird is singing by the pond,And all about him stars have burst in bloom,A colonnade stands pallidly beyond,And beneath that a solitary tomb.Who lies within that tomb I do not know,The yellow bird intones his threnodyIn notes as colourless as driven snow,Clashing with the green hush and out of key.
O cease, your endless song is out of tune,Where all these old forgotten things are sleeping,—Give back to silence's eternal keepingThe windless pond, the hanging colonnade,Lest in the wane of the long afternoon,The Dead awake, unhappy and afraid.
Bordeaux, 1917
Love dwelled with me with music on her lips;Beauty has quickened me to passion; prayerHas cried from me before I was awareWhen grief was scourging me with scarlet whips.The gods gave me to follies false and fair;Made me the object of immortal quips,But I am recompensed with comradeshipsThat gods themselves would be content to share.
The time of play has been, of wisdom, is;Yet who can say which is the truly wise?Enough that I have stayed Love with a kiss,That Beauty has found welcome in my eyes;Though the long poplar path leads dark before,Up to the white inevitable door.
Invoking not the worship of the crowdAs Hadrian divulged AntinousWould I denote Thy sanctity, not thusShould Love's deep litany be cried aloud.There is a mountain set apart for usWhere I have hid Thy soul as in a cloud,And there I dedicate as I have vowedMy secret voice,—all else were impious.
Remote and undiscovered, rest secureWhere I have set Thee up, that I may keepMy faith of God-in-Thee unblent and pure;That I may be at one with Thee in sleep;That waking as a mortal, I may leapInto immortal dreams where love is sure.
And yet think not that I desire to sealYour earthly beauty from the eyes of praise,The Soul I worship hath its holy-days,But being God is manifestly real.The flesh resplendent in a lover's gazeHath too its triumph; the divine idealIs dual and can wonderfully revealItself in dust enriched by subtle ways.
You are no shadow, for in you combineEarth-music and a spirit's sanctity,And both are exquisite, and both are mine…For holier men a Beatrice, for meThe joyous sense of your reality,Not half so saintly,—but far more divine.
With the young god who out of death createsThe flame of life made manifest in spring,Let us go forth at day's awakening,The first to open wide the garden gates.And resting where the blowing seasons sing,Await the voice of god who consecratesThe pallid hands of the autumnal fatesThat beckon from the dusk, dream-harvesting.
When comes the grey god, eager to destroyOur garnered hoard of wisdom and of joy,Fear not that phantom, desolate and stark,For the young god, the all-creating boy,Will come and find us sleeping in the dark,And from two deaths, bring forth life's single spark.
O it was gay! the wilderness was floral,The sea a bath of wine to the laughing swimmer;Dawn was a flaming fan; dusk was a glimmerLike undersea where sly dreams haunt the coral.The garden sang of fame when the golden shimmerOf sun glowed on the proud leaves of the laurel,—But time and love fought out their ancient quarrel;The songs are fainter now; the lights are dimmer.
For it is over, over, and the springIs not quite spring to you who sit alone;A paradise entire has taken wing;Love and her merry company are goneThe way of all delight and lyric measures,And the lone miser mourns his vanished treasures.
The snow is thawing on the hanging eaves,The buds unroll upon the basking limb,And hidden birds are practising a hymnTo sing when petals fall among the leaves.And yet in life there is an interimSo dull that stagnant loneliness bereavesBeauty of tenderness, and hope deceivesUntil the eyes grow sceptical and dim.
I know I have no right to solitudeWhen every friendly grove is loud with callsFrom bird to mating bird, and all the woodIs throbbing with the voice of waterfalls,But merry song and liquid interludeRing in my heart like mirth in empty halls.
So ends the day with beauty in the west,Bending in holy peace above the land;It is not needful that we understand;Oblivion is ours, and that is best.Oblivion of battles that commandOur wan reluctance, and a starless restBorne on in tideless twilight, where all questEnds in the pressure of a quiet hand.
There is no morrow to this final dreamThat paints the past so wonderfully fair;No rising sun shall desecrate that gleamOf fragile colour hanging on the air.Enshrined in sunset are all things that seemHappy and beautiful; and Thou art there.
Across the evening calm I faintly hearThe melody you loved; a violinSings through the listening air, far-off and thin,The infinite music of our happy year.The soul's dim gates are broken to let inThat gush of memories, and you are near,Poised on the shadowy threshold whence appearThe prospects of the dreams we strove to win.
Rise wistfully, and fall away, and pass,Frail music of impossible delight,Steal into silence over the dark grass,Dreams of the inner caverns of the night.Strange that in those few hesitating barsAre life and death, the orbits of the stars.
Calmer than mirrored waters after rain,Calmer than all the swaying tides of sleep,Profounder than the stony eyes that keepAfternoon vigil on the ruined plain;So drift they by, the cloudy forms that creepIn stealthy whiteness through the windless grain;The twilight ebbs, and washed in the long rain,I am their shepherd, pasturing my sheep.
They can not change; they can but wander here;That is their destiny and also mine;The fuel that I was, the flames they were,Are vanished down the lost horizon line.Likewise the stars have died; the silence hearsOnly the footfall of the pastured years.
I stood like some worn image carved of stoneAmid the thoughtful sands of eventide;When rolling back the grey, there opened wideThe unsuspected gates of the Unknown.Long hours I stood, amazed and deified,Beside that singing shore; that shining zone,Myself like God, triumphantly alone,"And is this then the shore of death?" I cried.
A wind blew down from the tremendous sky,Fraught with a whisper fainter than a breath,Fanning my spirit with exalted wonder;But the great doors swung to with rumbling thunder;One more the winged faith had passed me by,Like unto melody, like unto death.
Through the deep night the leaves speak, tree to tree.Where are the stars? the frantic clouds ride high,The swelling gusts of wind blow down the sky,Shaking the thoughts from the leaves, garrulously.Through the deep night, articulate to me,They question your untimely passing-by;Your spring is still in flower, must you flyWindswept so soon down lanes of memory?
Through the deep night the trees recount the past,The lovers that have long ago gone hence,And whom you joined ere love had reached her prime.Chill with an early autumn's immanence,Through the dark night plunges the sudden blast,Sweeping the young leaves down before their time.
I walked the hollow pavements of the town,Lost in the vast entirety of night,The moon was cankered with a greyish blight,And half her face was gathered in a frown.A hooded watchman passed me, and his gownWas dyed so black it made the darkness white,He turned upon my face his curious light,And whispered as he wandered up and down.
Then there were curling lanes and then a hill,And sentry stars that guard the Absolute,And spectral feet that followed me, untilThe vapours rose, and somewhere in the muteAnd hesitating dawn, a single flutePiped once again the grey, and then was still.
In tireless march I move from sphere to sphere.I turn not back nor pause; my feet are drawnBy shining power. Master soul or pawn,I know not which I am; I only hearThe faint insistent world voice murmuring onIts pivot in another atmosphere;All else is silence, the pervading yearBlows wanly through my senses and is gone.
O You who met me on the sunny lawnOf yesteryear, to be my true companion,And bade me lead you with me from the dawnInto the shades of my predestined canon,How is it that I find myself aloneHere in this desolate and starry zone?
A while you shared my path and solitude,A while you ate the bread of loneliness,And satisfied yourself with a caressOr with a careless overflow of mood.And then you left me suddenly, to pressInto the world again, and seek your foodAmong the mortals whom you understood,Instead of learning in the wilderness.
Now you return to where you fled from me,And find me gone. You call me from afar,And call in vain; I can not turn to seeYou loveliness, beloved as you are.Inexorably I move from sphere to sphere,Nor wait for any soul, however dear.
There is a void that reason can not face,Nor wisdom comprehend, nor sweating willDiminish, nor the rain of April fill,And I am weary of this wan grimace.Behold I touch the garments of all illAnd do not wash my hands; a dusty placeUnprobed by light becomes a loud mill raceThat swirls together straw and daffodil.
It is untrue that vigil can not traceThe orbits which upon our births distilThe filtered dew of fate; I saw the hillThat I must climb, and gauged the upward pace;And now upon the night's worn window sill,I wait and smile. Hail, Judas, full of grace.
The mirrors of all ages are the eyesOf some remembering god, wherein are sealedThe beauties of the world, the April field,Young faces, blowing hair, and autumn skies.The mirrors of the world shall break, and yieldTo life again what never really dies;The forms and colours of earth's pageantries,Unwithered and undimmed, shall be revealed.
And in that moment silence shall unfoldForgotten songs that she has held interred,The ocean rising on the shores of gold,Flecked with white laughter and love's lyric word;All happy music that the world has heard;All beauty that eternal eyes behold.
We sat in silence till the twilight fell,And then beyond the vague and purple arcWhere sky and ocean merge, a summons. "Hark!Clear notes like water falling in a well,Can you not hear?" "No, but a sudden darkSeems to enfold me, lonely and terrible."Out of the sunset, a black caravelDrew near, and then I knew I should embark.
I saw it tack against the fading skies,I heard its keel slide crunching up the sand,Then turned, and read, deep in the other's eyes,The pain of one who can not understand.Dusk deepened over the insurging seas,And loose sails crackled in the rising breeze.
He clung to me, his young face dark with woe,And as the mournful music of the tideMonotonously sang, he stood and cried,A silhouette against the afterglow.I said, "The boat has spread her pinions wide;The stars and wind come forth together. GoBack to our ivy-haunted portico,And place my seat as always at your side."
And so I stepped aboard and left him there.Farewell; the rhythmic somnolence of oars;Star-misty vastness; swiftly moving air;Then distant lights on undiscovered shores.This I remember, standing by the sea,But where was that dark land, and who were we?