I am a child of the reef and the blowing spray,And all my heart goes wildly to the sea.I am a changeling: can you follow meThrough hill and hollow on the wind’s dim way?Yes, at the break of a tempestuous dayThey bore me to the land through starless storm,And laid me in the pillow sweetly warmAnd broken by the first one’s little stay.The elf kings found me on an ocean reef,A lyric child of mystery and grief.Then need I tell you why the trembling start—Why in my song the sound of ocean dwells—Why the quick gladness when the billow swells,As though remembered voices called the heart?
I am a child of the reef and the blowing spray,And all my heart goes wildly to the sea.I am a changeling: can you follow meThrough hill and hollow on the wind’s dim way?Yes, at the break of a tempestuous dayThey bore me to the land through starless storm,And laid me in the pillow sweetly warmAnd broken by the first one’s little stay.The elf kings found me on an ocean reef,A lyric child of mystery and grief.Then need I tell you why the trembling start—Why in my song the sound of ocean dwells—Why the quick gladness when the billow swells,As though remembered voices called the heart?
I am a child of the reef and the blowing spray,And all my heart goes wildly to the sea.I am a changeling: can you follow meThrough hill and hollow on the wind’s dim way?Yes, at the break of a tempestuous dayThey bore me to the land through starless storm,And laid me in the pillow sweetly warmAnd broken by the first one’s little stay.
The elf kings found me on an ocean reef,A lyric child of mystery and grief.Then need I tell you why the trembling start—Why in my song the sound of ocean dwells—Why the quick gladness when the billow swells,As though remembered voices called the heart?
When I behold how men and women grindAnd grovel for some place of pomp or power,To shine and circle through a crumbling hour,Forgetting the large mansions of the mind,That are the rest and shelter of mankind;And when I see them come with wearied brainsPallid and powerless to enjoy their gains,I seem to hear a goblin laugh unwind.And then a memory sends upon its billowThoughts of a singer wise enough to play,Who took life as a lightsome holiday:Oft have I seen him make his arm a pillow,Drink from his hand, and with a pipe of willowBlow a wild music down a woodland way.
When I behold how men and women grindAnd grovel for some place of pomp or power,To shine and circle through a crumbling hour,Forgetting the large mansions of the mind,That are the rest and shelter of mankind;And when I see them come with wearied brainsPallid and powerless to enjoy their gains,I seem to hear a goblin laugh unwind.And then a memory sends upon its billowThoughts of a singer wise enough to play,Who took life as a lightsome holiday:Oft have I seen him make his arm a pillow,Drink from his hand, and with a pipe of willowBlow a wild music down a woodland way.
When I behold how men and women grindAnd grovel for some place of pomp or power,To shine and circle through a crumbling hour,Forgetting the large mansions of the mind,That are the rest and shelter of mankind;And when I see them come with wearied brainsPallid and powerless to enjoy their gains,I seem to hear a goblin laugh unwind.
And then a memory sends upon its billowThoughts of a singer wise enough to play,Who took life as a lightsome holiday:Oft have I seen him make his arm a pillow,Drink from his hand, and with a pipe of willowBlow a wild music down a woodland way.
She comes as hush and beauty of the night,And sees too deep for laughter;Her touch is a vibration and a lightFrom worlds before and after.
She comes as hush and beauty of the night,And sees too deep for laughter;Her touch is a vibration and a lightFrom worlds before and after.
She comes as hush and beauty of the night,And sees too deep for laughter;Her touch is a vibration and a lightFrom worlds before and after.
Softly she came one twilight from the dead,And in the passionate silence of her lookWas more than man has writ in any book:And now my thoughts are restless, and a dreadCalls them to the Dim Land discomforted;For down the leafy ways her white feet took,Lightly the newly broken roses shook—Was it the wind disturbed each rosy head?God! was it joy or sorrow in her face—That quiet face? Had it grown old or young?Was it sweet memory or sad that stungHer voiceless soul to wander from its place?What do the dead find in the Silence—grace?Or endless grief for which there is no tongue?
Softly she came one twilight from the dead,And in the passionate silence of her lookWas more than man has writ in any book:And now my thoughts are restless, and a dreadCalls them to the Dim Land discomforted;For down the leafy ways her white feet took,Lightly the newly broken roses shook—Was it the wind disturbed each rosy head?God! was it joy or sorrow in her face—That quiet face? Had it grown old or young?Was it sweet memory or sad that stungHer voiceless soul to wander from its place?What do the dead find in the Silence—grace?Or endless grief for which there is no tongue?
Softly she came one twilight from the dead,And in the passionate silence of her lookWas more than man has writ in any book:And now my thoughts are restless, and a dreadCalls them to the Dim Land discomforted;For down the leafy ways her white feet took,Lightly the newly broken roses shook—Was it the wind disturbed each rosy head?
God! was it joy or sorrow in her face—That quiet face? Had it grown old or young?Was it sweet memory or sad that stungHer voiceless soul to wander from its place?What do the dead find in the Silence—grace?Or endless grief for which there is no tongue?
The little pool, in street or field apart,Glasses deep heavens and the rushing storm;And into silent depths of every heart,The Eternal throws its awful shadow-form.
The little pool, in street or field apart,Glasses deep heavens and the rushing storm;And into silent depths of every heart,The Eternal throws its awful shadow-form.
The little pool, in street or field apart,Glasses deep heavens and the rushing storm;And into silent depths of every heart,The Eternal throws its awful shadow-form.
Beside the sewing-table chained and bent,They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and proud—For her a wedding-gown, for them a shroud;They stitch and stitch, but never mend the rentTorn in life’s golden curtains. Glad Youth went,And left them alone with Time; and now if bowedWith burdens they should sob and cry aloud,—Wondering, the rich would look from their content.And so this glimmering life at last recedesIn unknown, endless depths beyond recall;And what’s the worth of all our ancient creeds,If here at the end of ages this is all—A white face floating in the whirling ball,A dead face plashing in the river reeds?
Beside the sewing-table chained and bent,They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and proud—For her a wedding-gown, for them a shroud;They stitch and stitch, but never mend the rentTorn in life’s golden curtains. Glad Youth went,And left them alone with Time; and now if bowedWith burdens they should sob and cry aloud,—Wondering, the rich would look from their content.And so this glimmering life at last recedesIn unknown, endless depths beyond recall;And what’s the worth of all our ancient creeds,If here at the end of ages this is all—A white face floating in the whirling ball,A dead face plashing in the river reeds?
Beside the sewing-table chained and bent,They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and proud—For her a wedding-gown, for them a shroud;They stitch and stitch, but never mend the rentTorn in life’s golden curtains. Glad Youth went,And left them alone with Time; and now if bowedWith burdens they should sob and cry aloud,—Wondering, the rich would look from their content.
And so this glimmering life at last recedesIn unknown, endless depths beyond recall;And what’s the worth of all our ancient creeds,If here at the end of ages this is all—A white face floating in the whirling ball,A dead face plashing in the river reeds?
There is a sacred Something on all ways—Something that watches through the Universe;One that remembers, reckons and repays,Giving us love for love, and curse for curse.
There is a sacred Something on all ways—Something that watches through the Universe;One that remembers, reckons and repays,Giving us love for love, and curse for curse.
There is a sacred Something on all ways—Something that watches through the Universe;One that remembers, reckons and repays,Giving us love for love, and curse for curse.
The Spirit of Earth, with still restoring hands,’Mid ruin moves, in glimmering chasm gropes,And mosses mantle and the bright flower opes;But Death the Ploughman wanders in all lands,And to the last of Earth his furrow stands.The grave is never hidden; fearful hopesFollow the dead upon the fading slopes,And there wild memories meet upon the sands.When willows fling their banners to the plain,When rumor of winds and sound of sudden showersDisturb the dream of winter—all in vainThe grasses hurry to the graves, the flowersToss their wild torches on their windy towers;Yet are the bleak graves lonely in the rain.
The Spirit of Earth, with still restoring hands,’Mid ruin moves, in glimmering chasm gropes,And mosses mantle and the bright flower opes;But Death the Ploughman wanders in all lands,And to the last of Earth his furrow stands.The grave is never hidden; fearful hopesFollow the dead upon the fading slopes,And there wild memories meet upon the sands.When willows fling their banners to the plain,When rumor of winds and sound of sudden showersDisturb the dream of winter—all in vainThe grasses hurry to the graves, the flowersToss their wild torches on their windy towers;Yet are the bleak graves lonely in the rain.
The Spirit of Earth, with still restoring hands,’Mid ruin moves, in glimmering chasm gropes,And mosses mantle and the bright flower opes;But Death the Ploughman wanders in all lands,And to the last of Earth his furrow stands.The grave is never hidden; fearful hopesFollow the dead upon the fading slopes,And there wild memories meet upon the sands.
When willows fling their banners to the plain,When rumor of winds and sound of sudden showersDisturb the dream of winter—all in vainThe grasses hurry to the graves, the flowersToss their wild torches on their windy towers;Yet are the bleak graves lonely in the rain.
I huddled close against the mighty cliff.A sense of safety and of brotherhoodBroke on the heart: the shelter of a rockIs sweeter than the roofs of all the world.
I huddled close against the mighty cliff.A sense of safety and of brotherhoodBroke on the heart: the shelter of a rockIs sweeter than the roofs of all the world.
I huddled close against the mighty cliff.A sense of safety and of brotherhoodBroke on the heart: the shelter of a rockIs sweeter than the roofs of all the world.
Blithe Fancy lightly builds with airy handsOr on the edges of the darkness peers,Breathless and frightened at the Voice she hears:Imagination (lo! the sky expands)Travels the blue arch and Cimmerian sands,—Homeless on earth, the pilgrim of the spheres,The rush of light before the hurrying years,The Voice that cries in unfamiliar lands.Men weigh the moons that flood with eerie lightThe dusky vales of Saturn—wood and stream;But who shall follow on the awful sweepOf Neptune through the dim and dreadful deep?Onward he wanders in the unknown night,And we are shadows moving in a dream.
Blithe Fancy lightly builds with airy handsOr on the edges of the darkness peers,Breathless and frightened at the Voice she hears:Imagination (lo! the sky expands)Travels the blue arch and Cimmerian sands,—Homeless on earth, the pilgrim of the spheres,The rush of light before the hurrying years,The Voice that cries in unfamiliar lands.Men weigh the moons that flood with eerie lightThe dusky vales of Saturn—wood and stream;But who shall follow on the awful sweepOf Neptune through the dim and dreadful deep?Onward he wanders in the unknown night,And we are shadows moving in a dream.
Blithe Fancy lightly builds with airy handsOr on the edges of the darkness peers,Breathless and frightened at the Voice she hears:Imagination (lo! the sky expands)Travels the blue arch and Cimmerian sands,—Homeless on earth, the pilgrim of the spheres,The rush of light before the hurrying years,The Voice that cries in unfamiliar lands.
Men weigh the moons that flood with eerie lightThe dusky vales of Saturn—wood and stream;But who shall follow on the awful sweepOf Neptune through the dim and dreadful deep?Onward he wanders in the unknown night,And we are shadows moving in a dream.
I stray with Ariel and Caliban:I know the hill of windy pines—I knowWhere the jay’s nest swings in the wild gorge below:Lightly I climb where fallen cedars spanBright rivers—climb to a valley under ban,Where west winds set a thousand bells ablow—An eerie valley where in the morning glowI hear the music of the pipes of Pan.Mysterious horns blow by on the still air—A satyr steps—a wood-god’s dewy notesCome faintly from a vale of tossing oats.—But ho! what white thing in the canyon crossed?Gods! I shall come on Dian unaware,Look on her fearful beauty and be lost.
I stray with Ariel and Caliban:I know the hill of windy pines—I knowWhere the jay’s nest swings in the wild gorge below:Lightly I climb where fallen cedars spanBright rivers—climb to a valley under ban,Where west winds set a thousand bells ablow—An eerie valley where in the morning glowI hear the music of the pipes of Pan.Mysterious horns blow by on the still air—A satyr steps—a wood-god’s dewy notesCome faintly from a vale of tossing oats.—But ho! what white thing in the canyon crossed?Gods! I shall come on Dian unaware,Look on her fearful beauty and be lost.
I stray with Ariel and Caliban:I know the hill of windy pines—I knowWhere the jay’s nest swings in the wild gorge below:Lightly I climb where fallen cedars spanBright rivers—climb to a valley under ban,Where west winds set a thousand bells ablow—An eerie valley where in the morning glowI hear the music of the pipes of Pan.
Mysterious horns blow by on the still air—A satyr steps—a wood-god’s dewy notesCome faintly from a vale of tossing oats.—But ho! what white thing in the canyon crossed?Gods! I shall come on Dian unaware,Look on her fearful beauty and be lost.
Some cry of Sappho’s lyre, of Saadi’s flute,Comes back across the waste of mortal things:Men strive and die to reach the Dead Sea fruit—Only the poets find immortal springs.
Some cry of Sappho’s lyre, of Saadi’s flute,Comes back across the waste of mortal things:Men strive and die to reach the Dead Sea fruit—Only the poets find immortal springs.
Some cry of Sappho’s lyre, of Saadi’s flute,Comes back across the waste of mortal things:Men strive and die to reach the Dead Sea fruit—Only the poets find immortal springs.
Love will outwatch the stars, and light the skiesWhen the last star falls, and the silent dark devours;God’s warrior, he will watch the allotted hours,And conquer with the look of his sad eyes:He shakes the kingdom of darkness with his sighs,His quiet sighs, while all the Infernal PowersTremble and pale upon their central towers,Lest, haply, his bright universe arise.All will be well if he have strength to wait,Till his lost Pleiad, white and silver-shod,Regains her place to make the perfect Seven;Then all the worlds will know that Love is Fate—That somehow he is greater even than Heaven—That in the Cosmic Council he is God.
Love will outwatch the stars, and light the skiesWhen the last star falls, and the silent dark devours;God’s warrior, he will watch the allotted hours,And conquer with the look of his sad eyes:He shakes the kingdom of darkness with his sighs,His quiet sighs, while all the Infernal PowersTremble and pale upon their central towers,Lest, haply, his bright universe arise.All will be well if he have strength to wait,Till his lost Pleiad, white and silver-shod,Regains her place to make the perfect Seven;Then all the worlds will know that Love is Fate—That somehow he is greater even than Heaven—That in the Cosmic Council he is God.
Love will outwatch the stars, and light the skiesWhen the last star falls, and the silent dark devours;God’s warrior, he will watch the allotted hours,And conquer with the look of his sad eyes:He shakes the kingdom of darkness with his sighs,His quiet sighs, while all the Infernal PowersTremble and pale upon their central towers,Lest, haply, his bright universe arise.
All will be well if he have strength to wait,Till his lost Pleiad, white and silver-shod,Regains her place to make the perfect Seven;Then all the worlds will know that Love is Fate—That somehow he is greater even than Heaven—That in the Cosmic Council he is God.
I built a chimney for a comrade old,I did the service not for hope or hire—And then I traveled on in winter’s cold,Yet all the day I glowed before the fire.
I built a chimney for a comrade old,I did the service not for hope or hire—And then I traveled on in winter’s cold,Yet all the day I glowed before the fire.
I built a chimney for a comrade old,I did the service not for hope or hire—And then I traveled on in winter’s cold,Yet all the day I glowed before the fire.
O wingèd brother on the harebell, stay—Was God’s hand very pitiful, the handThat wrought thy beauty at a dream’s demand?Yea, knowing I love so well the flowery way,He did not fling me to the world astray—He did not drop me to the weary sand,But bore me gently to a leafy land:Tinting my wings, He gave me to the day.Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair!I will go back now to the world of men.Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air,Yet thou hast girded up my heart again;For He that framed the impenetrable plan,And keeps His word with thee, will keep with man.
O wingèd brother on the harebell, stay—Was God’s hand very pitiful, the handThat wrought thy beauty at a dream’s demand?Yea, knowing I love so well the flowery way,He did not fling me to the world astray—He did not drop me to the weary sand,But bore me gently to a leafy land:Tinting my wings, He gave me to the day.Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair!I will go back now to the world of men.Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air,Yet thou hast girded up my heart again;For He that framed the impenetrable plan,And keeps His word with thee, will keep with man.
O wingèd brother on the harebell, stay—Was God’s hand very pitiful, the handThat wrought thy beauty at a dream’s demand?
Yea, knowing I love so well the flowery way,He did not fling me to the world astray—He did not drop me to the weary sand,But bore me gently to a leafy land:Tinting my wings, He gave me to the day.
Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair!I will go back now to the world of men.Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air,Yet thou hast girded up my heart again;For He that framed the impenetrable plan,And keeps His word with thee, will keep with man.
After reading “The Purple East.”
That hour you put the wreath of England byTo shake her guilty heart with song sublime,The mighty Muse that watches from the skyLaid on your head the larger wreath of Time.
That hour you put the wreath of England byTo shake her guilty heart with song sublime,The mighty Muse that watches from the skyLaid on your head the larger wreath of Time.
That hour you put the wreath of England byTo shake her guilty heart with song sublime,The mighty Muse that watches from the skyLaid on your head the larger wreath of Time.
Often of that Last Hour I lie and think;I see thee, Keats, nearing the Deathway dim—See Severn in his noiseless hurry, himWho leaned above thee fading on the brink.. . . . . . .What is that wild light through the window chink?Is it the burning feet of cherubim?Or is it the white moon on western rim—Saint Agnes’ moon beginning now to sink?How did Death come—with sounds of water-stir?With forms of beauty breaking at the lips?With field pipes and the scent of blowing fir?Or came it hurrying like a last eclipse,Sweeping the world away like gossamer,Blotting the moon, the mountains, and the ships?
Often of that Last Hour I lie and think;I see thee, Keats, nearing the Deathway dim—See Severn in his noiseless hurry, himWho leaned above thee fading on the brink.. . . . . . .What is that wild light through the window chink?Is it the burning feet of cherubim?Or is it the white moon on western rim—Saint Agnes’ moon beginning now to sink?How did Death come—with sounds of water-stir?With forms of beauty breaking at the lips?With field pipes and the scent of blowing fir?Or came it hurrying like a last eclipse,Sweeping the world away like gossamer,Blotting the moon, the mountains, and the ships?
Often of that Last Hour I lie and think;I see thee, Keats, nearing the Deathway dim—See Severn in his noiseless hurry, himWho leaned above thee fading on the brink.. . . . . . .What is that wild light through the window chink?Is it the burning feet of cherubim?Or is it the white moon on western rim—Saint Agnes’ moon beginning now to sink?
How did Death come—with sounds of water-stir?With forms of beauty breaking at the lips?With field pipes and the scent of blowing fir?Or came it hurrying like a last eclipse,Sweeping the world away like gossamer,Blotting the moon, the mountains, and the ships?
Out of the deep and endless universeThere came a greater Mystery, a Shape,A Something sad, inscrutable, august—One to confront the worlds and question them.
Out of the deep and endless universeThere came a greater Mystery, a Shape,A Something sad, inscrutable, august—One to confront the worlds and question them.
Out of the deep and endless universeThere came a greater Mystery, a Shape,A Something sad, inscrutable, august—One to confront the worlds and question them.
The twilight is the morning of his day,While sleep drops seaward from the fading shore,With purpling sail and dip of silver oar,He cheers the shadowed time with roun-delay,Until the dark east softens into gray.Now as the noisy hours are coming—hark!His song dies gently—it is growing dark—His night, with its one star, is on its way!Faintly the light breaks o’er the blowing oats—Sleep, little brother, sleep: I am astir,We worship Song, and servants are of her—I in the bright hours, thou in shadow-time;Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes,And I will lead the clamoring day with rhyme.
The twilight is the morning of his day,While sleep drops seaward from the fading shore,With purpling sail and dip of silver oar,He cheers the shadowed time with roun-delay,Until the dark east softens into gray.Now as the noisy hours are coming—hark!His song dies gently—it is growing dark—His night, with its one star, is on its way!Faintly the light breaks o’er the blowing oats—Sleep, little brother, sleep: I am astir,We worship Song, and servants are of her—I in the bright hours, thou in shadow-time;Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes,And I will lead the clamoring day with rhyme.
The twilight is the morning of his day,While sleep drops seaward from the fading shore,With purpling sail and dip of silver oar,He cheers the shadowed time with roun-delay,Until the dark east softens into gray.Now as the noisy hours are coming—hark!His song dies gently—it is growing dark—His night, with its one star, is on its way!
Faintly the light breaks o’er the blowing oats—Sleep, little brother, sleep: I am astir,We worship Song, and servants are of her—I in the bright hours, thou in shadow-time;Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes,And I will lead the clamoring day with rhyme.
There at a certain hour of the deep night,A gray cliff with a demon face comes up,Wrinkled and old, behind the peaks, and withAn anxious look peers at the Zodiac.
There at a certain hour of the deep night,A gray cliff with a demon face comes up,Wrinkled and old, behind the peaks, and withAn anxious look peers at the Zodiac.
There at a certain hour of the deep night,A gray cliff with a demon face comes up,Wrinkled and old, behind the peaks, and withAn anxious look peers at the Zodiac.
Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:Shadows of shadows pass, and many a lightFlashes a signal fire across the night;Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keepTheir way without a star upon the deep;And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,Come cries of incommunicable news,While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap—Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong,Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand,Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins,Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns,And bales of fantasy from No-Man’s Land.
Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:Shadows of shadows pass, and many a lightFlashes a signal fire across the night;Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keepTheir way without a star upon the deep;And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,Come cries of incommunicable news,While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap—Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong,Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand,Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins,Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns,And bales of fantasy from No-Man’s Land.
Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:Shadows of shadows pass, and many a lightFlashes a signal fire across the night;Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keepTheir way without a star upon the deep;And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,Come cries of incommunicable news,While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap—
Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong,Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand,Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins,Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns,And bales of fantasy from No-Man’s Land.
I cannot take your road, Louise Michel,Priestess of Pity and of Vengeance—no:Down that amorphous gulf I cannot go—That gulf of Anarchy whose pit is Hell.Yet, sister, though my first word is farewell,Remember that I know your hidden woe;Have felt the grief that rends you blow on blow;Have knelt beside you in the murky cell.You never followed hate (let this atone)Nor knew the wrongs of others from your own:Wild was the road, but Love has always led,So I am silent where I cannot praise;And here now at the parting of the ways,I lay a still hand lightly on your head.
I cannot take your road, Louise Michel,Priestess of Pity and of Vengeance—no:Down that amorphous gulf I cannot go—That gulf of Anarchy whose pit is Hell.Yet, sister, though my first word is farewell,Remember that I know your hidden woe;Have felt the grief that rends you blow on blow;Have knelt beside you in the murky cell.You never followed hate (let this atone)Nor knew the wrongs of others from your own:Wild was the road, but Love has always led,So I am silent where I cannot praise;And here now at the parting of the ways,I lay a still hand lightly on your head.
I cannot take your road, Louise Michel,Priestess of Pity and of Vengeance—no:Down that amorphous gulf I cannot go—That gulf of Anarchy whose pit is Hell.Yet, sister, though my first word is farewell,Remember that I know your hidden woe;Have felt the grief that rends you blow on blow;Have knelt beside you in the murky cell.
You never followed hate (let this atone)Nor knew the wrongs of others from your own:Wild was the road, but Love has always led,So I am silent where I cannot praise;And here now at the parting of the ways,I lay a still hand lightly on your head.
Ah, once of old in some forgotten tongue,Forgotten land, I was a shepherd boy,And you a Nereid, a wingèd joy:On through the dawn-bright peaks our bodies swungAnd flower-soft lyrics by immortals sungFell from their unseen pinnacles in air:God looked from Heaven that hour, for you were fair,And I a poet, and the star was young.You’d heard my woodland pipe and left the sea—Your hair blown gold and all your body white—Had left the ocean-girls to follow me.We joined the hill-nymphs in their joyous flight,And you laughed lightly to the sea, and sentQuick glances flashing through me as I went.
Ah, once of old in some forgotten tongue,Forgotten land, I was a shepherd boy,And you a Nereid, a wingèd joy:On through the dawn-bright peaks our bodies swungAnd flower-soft lyrics by immortals sungFell from their unseen pinnacles in air:God looked from Heaven that hour, for you were fair,And I a poet, and the star was young.You’d heard my woodland pipe and left the sea—Your hair blown gold and all your body white—Had left the ocean-girls to follow me.We joined the hill-nymphs in their joyous flight,And you laughed lightly to the sea, and sentQuick glances flashing through me as I went.
Ah, once of old in some forgotten tongue,Forgotten land, I was a shepherd boy,And you a Nereid, a wingèd joy:On through the dawn-bright peaks our bodies swungAnd flower-soft lyrics by immortals sungFell from their unseen pinnacles in air:God looked from Heaven that hour, for you were fair,And I a poet, and the star was young.
You’d heard my woodland pipe and left the sea—Your hair blown gold and all your body white—Had left the ocean-girls to follow me.We joined the hill-nymphs in their joyous flight,And you laughed lightly to the sea, and sentQuick glances flashing through me as I went.
Oh, down the quick river our galley is going,With a sound in the cordage, a beam on the sail:The wind of the canyon our loose hair is blowing,And the clouds of the morning are glad of the gale.Around the swift prow little billows are breaking,And flinging their foam in a glory of light;Now the shade of a rock on the river is shaking,And a wave leaps high up growing suddenly white.The weight of the whole world is light as a feather,And the peaks rise in silence and westerly flee:Oh, the world and the poet are singing together,And from the far cliff comes a sound of the sea.
Oh, down the quick river our galley is going,With a sound in the cordage, a beam on the sail:The wind of the canyon our loose hair is blowing,And the clouds of the morning are glad of the gale.Around the swift prow little billows are breaking,And flinging their foam in a glory of light;Now the shade of a rock on the river is shaking,And a wave leaps high up growing suddenly white.The weight of the whole world is light as a feather,And the peaks rise in silence and westerly flee:Oh, the world and the poet are singing together,And from the far cliff comes a sound of the sea.
Oh, down the quick river our galley is going,With a sound in the cordage, a beam on the sail:The wind of the canyon our loose hair is blowing,And the clouds of the morning are glad of the gale.
Around the swift prow little billows are breaking,And flinging their foam in a glory of light;Now the shade of a rock on the river is shaking,And a wave leaps high up growing suddenly white.
The weight of the whole world is light as a feather,And the peaks rise in silence and westerly flee:Oh, the world and the poet are singing together,And from the far cliff comes a sound of the sea.
I never build a song by night or day,Of breaking ocean or of blowing whin,But in some wondrous unexpected way,Like light upon a road, my Love comes in.And when I go at night upon the hill,My heart is lifted on mysterious wings:My Love is there to strengthen and to still,For she can take away the dread of things.
I never build a song by night or day,Of breaking ocean or of blowing whin,But in some wondrous unexpected way,Like light upon a road, my Love comes in.And when I go at night upon the hill,My heart is lifted on mysterious wings:My Love is there to strengthen and to still,For she can take away the dread of things.
I never build a song by night or day,Of breaking ocean or of blowing whin,But in some wondrous unexpected way,Like light upon a road, my Love comes in.
And when I go at night upon the hill,My heart is lifted on mysterious wings:My Love is there to strengthen and to still,For she can take away the dread of things.
Alone I listIn the leafy tryst;Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep—Silent the phantom wood in waters deep:No footfall of a wind along the passStartles a harebell—stirs a blade of grass.Yonder the wandering weeds,Enchanted in the light,Stand in the gusty hollows, still and white;Yonder are plumy reeds,Dusking the border of the clear lagoon;Far off the silver cliftsHang in ethereal light below the moon;Far off the ocean lifts,Tossing its billows in the misty beam,And shore-lines whiten, silent as a dream:I hark for the bird, and all the hushed hills harken:This is the valley: here the branches darkenThe silver-lighted stream.Hark—That rapture in the leafy dark!Who is it shouts upon the bough aswing,Waking the upland and the valley under?What carols, like the blazon of a king,Fill all the dawn with wonder?Oh, hush,It is the thrush,In the deep and woody glen!Ah, thus the gladness of the gods was sung,When the old Earth was young;That rapture rang,When the first morning on the mountains sprang:And now he shouts, and the world is young again!Carol, my king,On your bough aswingThou art not of these evil days—Thou art a voice of the world’s lost youth:Oh, tell me what is duty—what is truth—How to find God upon these hungry ways;Tell of the golden prime,When men beheld swift deities descend,Before the race was left alone with Time,Homesick on Earth, and homeless to the end,When bird and beast could make a man their friend;Before great Pan was dead,Before the naiads fled;When maidens white with dark eyes shy and bold,With peals of laughter on the peaks of gold,Startled the still dawn—Shone in upon the mountains and were gone,Their voices fading silverly in depths of forests old.Sing of the wonders of their woodland ways,Before the weird earth-hunger of these days,When there was rippling mirth,When justice was on Earth,And light and grandeur of the Golden Age;When never a heart was sad,When all from king to herdsman hadA penny for a wage.Ah, that old time has faded to a dream—The moon’s fair face is broken in the stream;Yet shout and carol on, O bird, and letThe exiled race not utterly forget;Publish thy revelation on the lawns—Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns;Sometime, in some sweet year,These stormy souls, these men of Earth may hear.But hark again,From the secret glen,That voice of rapture and ethereal youthNow laden with despair.Forbear, O bird, forbear:Is life not terrible enough forsooth?Cease, cease the mystic song—No more, no more, the passion and the pain:It wakes my life to fret against the chain;It makes me think of all the agèd wrong—Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all—Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall.Ah, ah, that voice again!It makes me think of all these restless men,Called into time—their progress and their goal;And now, oh now, it sends into my soulDreams of a love that might have been for me—That might have been—and now can never be.Tell me no more of these—Tell me of trancèd trees;(The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare)Show me the leafy home of the wild bees;Show me the snowy summits dim in air;Tell me of things afarIn valleys silent under moon and star:Dim hollows hushed with night,The lofty cedars misty in the light,Wild clusters of the vine,Wild odors of the pine,The eagle’s eyrie lifted to the moon—High places where on quiet afternoonA shadow swiftens by, a thrilling screamStartles the cliff, and dies across the woodland to a dream.Ha, nowHe springs from the bough,It flickers—he is lost!Out of the copse he sprang;This is the floating briar where he tossed:The leaves are yet atremble where he sang.Here a long vista opens—look!This is the way he took,Through the pale poplars by the pond:Hark! he is shouting in the field beyond.Ho, there he goesThrough the alder close!He leaves me here behind him in his flight,And yet my heart goes with him out of sight!What whispered spellOf Faëry calls me on from dell to dell?I hear the voice—it wanders in a dream—Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on the fading stream.Lead on—you know the way—Lead on to Arcady,O’er fields asleep; by river bank abrim;Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim;By dripping rocks, dark dwellings of the gnome,Where hurrying waters dash their crests to foam.I follow where you lead,Down winding paths, across the flowery mead,Down silent hollows where the woodbine blows,Up water-courses scented by the rose.I follow the wandering voice—I follow, I rejoice,I fade away into the Age of Gold—We two together lost in forest old.—O ferny and thymy paths, O fields of Aidenn,Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod!O souls that weary and are heavy laden,Here is the peace of God!Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the way:Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray;From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run,With sudden apprehension of the sun;A light wind stirsThe filmy tops of delicate dim firs,And on the river border blows,Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose.Sing out, O throstle, sing:I follow on, my king:Lead me forever through the crimson dawn—Till the world ends, lead me on!Ho there! he shouts again—he sways—and now,Upspringing from the bough,Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground,Without a soundHe drops into a valley and is gone!
Alone I listIn the leafy tryst;Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep—Silent the phantom wood in waters deep:No footfall of a wind along the passStartles a harebell—stirs a blade of grass.Yonder the wandering weeds,Enchanted in the light,Stand in the gusty hollows, still and white;Yonder are plumy reeds,Dusking the border of the clear lagoon;Far off the silver cliftsHang in ethereal light below the moon;Far off the ocean lifts,Tossing its billows in the misty beam,And shore-lines whiten, silent as a dream:I hark for the bird, and all the hushed hills harken:This is the valley: here the branches darkenThe silver-lighted stream.Hark—That rapture in the leafy dark!Who is it shouts upon the bough aswing,Waking the upland and the valley under?What carols, like the blazon of a king,Fill all the dawn with wonder?Oh, hush,It is the thrush,In the deep and woody glen!Ah, thus the gladness of the gods was sung,When the old Earth was young;That rapture rang,When the first morning on the mountains sprang:And now he shouts, and the world is young again!Carol, my king,On your bough aswingThou art not of these evil days—Thou art a voice of the world’s lost youth:Oh, tell me what is duty—what is truth—How to find God upon these hungry ways;Tell of the golden prime,When men beheld swift deities descend,Before the race was left alone with Time,Homesick on Earth, and homeless to the end,When bird and beast could make a man their friend;Before great Pan was dead,Before the naiads fled;When maidens white with dark eyes shy and bold,With peals of laughter on the peaks of gold,Startled the still dawn—Shone in upon the mountains and were gone,Their voices fading silverly in depths of forests old.Sing of the wonders of their woodland ways,Before the weird earth-hunger of these days,When there was rippling mirth,When justice was on Earth,And light and grandeur of the Golden Age;When never a heart was sad,When all from king to herdsman hadA penny for a wage.Ah, that old time has faded to a dream—The moon’s fair face is broken in the stream;Yet shout and carol on, O bird, and letThe exiled race not utterly forget;Publish thy revelation on the lawns—Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns;Sometime, in some sweet year,These stormy souls, these men of Earth may hear.But hark again,From the secret glen,That voice of rapture and ethereal youthNow laden with despair.Forbear, O bird, forbear:Is life not terrible enough forsooth?Cease, cease the mystic song—No more, no more, the passion and the pain:It wakes my life to fret against the chain;It makes me think of all the agèd wrong—Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all—Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall.Ah, ah, that voice again!It makes me think of all these restless men,Called into time—their progress and their goal;And now, oh now, it sends into my soulDreams of a love that might have been for me—That might have been—and now can never be.Tell me no more of these—Tell me of trancèd trees;(The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare)Show me the leafy home of the wild bees;Show me the snowy summits dim in air;Tell me of things afarIn valleys silent under moon and star:Dim hollows hushed with night,The lofty cedars misty in the light,Wild clusters of the vine,Wild odors of the pine,The eagle’s eyrie lifted to the moon—High places where on quiet afternoonA shadow swiftens by, a thrilling screamStartles the cliff, and dies across the woodland to a dream.Ha, nowHe springs from the bough,It flickers—he is lost!Out of the copse he sprang;This is the floating briar where he tossed:The leaves are yet atremble where he sang.Here a long vista opens—look!This is the way he took,Through the pale poplars by the pond:Hark! he is shouting in the field beyond.Ho, there he goesThrough the alder close!He leaves me here behind him in his flight,And yet my heart goes with him out of sight!What whispered spellOf Faëry calls me on from dell to dell?I hear the voice—it wanders in a dream—Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on the fading stream.Lead on—you know the way—Lead on to Arcady,O’er fields asleep; by river bank abrim;Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim;By dripping rocks, dark dwellings of the gnome,Where hurrying waters dash their crests to foam.I follow where you lead,Down winding paths, across the flowery mead,Down silent hollows where the woodbine blows,Up water-courses scented by the rose.I follow the wandering voice—I follow, I rejoice,I fade away into the Age of Gold—We two together lost in forest old.—O ferny and thymy paths, O fields of Aidenn,Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod!O souls that weary and are heavy laden,Here is the peace of God!Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the way:Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray;From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run,With sudden apprehension of the sun;A light wind stirsThe filmy tops of delicate dim firs,And on the river border blows,Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose.Sing out, O throstle, sing:I follow on, my king:Lead me forever through the crimson dawn—Till the world ends, lead me on!Ho there! he shouts again—he sways—and now,Upspringing from the bough,Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground,Without a soundHe drops into a valley and is gone!
Alone I listIn the leafy tryst;Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep—Silent the phantom wood in waters deep:No footfall of a wind along the passStartles a harebell—stirs a blade of grass.Yonder the wandering weeds,Enchanted in the light,Stand in the gusty hollows, still and white;Yonder are plumy reeds,Dusking the border of the clear lagoon;Far off the silver cliftsHang in ethereal light below the moon;Far off the ocean lifts,Tossing its billows in the misty beam,And shore-lines whiten, silent as a dream:I hark for the bird, and all the hushed hills harken:This is the valley: here the branches darkenThe silver-lighted stream.
Hark—That rapture in the leafy dark!Who is it shouts upon the bough aswing,Waking the upland and the valley under?What carols, like the blazon of a king,Fill all the dawn with wonder?Oh, hush,It is the thrush,In the deep and woody glen!Ah, thus the gladness of the gods was sung,When the old Earth was young;That rapture rang,When the first morning on the mountains sprang:And now he shouts, and the world is young again!
Carol, my king,On your bough aswingThou art not of these evil days—Thou art a voice of the world’s lost youth:Oh, tell me what is duty—what is truth—How to find God upon these hungry ways;Tell of the golden prime,When men beheld swift deities descend,Before the race was left alone with Time,Homesick on Earth, and homeless to the end,When bird and beast could make a man their friend;Before great Pan was dead,Before the naiads fled;When maidens white with dark eyes shy and bold,With peals of laughter on the peaks of gold,Startled the still dawn—Shone in upon the mountains and were gone,Their voices fading silverly in depths of forests old.
Sing of the wonders of their woodland ways,Before the weird earth-hunger of these days,When there was rippling mirth,When justice was on Earth,And light and grandeur of the Golden Age;When never a heart was sad,When all from king to herdsman hadA penny for a wage.Ah, that old time has faded to a dream—The moon’s fair face is broken in the stream;Yet shout and carol on, O bird, and letThe exiled race not utterly forget;Publish thy revelation on the lawns—Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns;Sometime, in some sweet year,These stormy souls, these men of Earth may hear.
But hark again,From the secret glen,That voice of rapture and ethereal youthNow laden with despair.Forbear, O bird, forbear:Is life not terrible enough forsooth?Cease, cease the mystic song—No more, no more, the passion and the pain:It wakes my life to fret against the chain;It makes me think of all the agèd wrong—Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all—Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall.Ah, ah, that voice again!It makes me think of all these restless men,Called into time—their progress and their goal;And now, oh now, it sends into my soulDreams of a love that might have been for me—That might have been—and now can never be.
Tell me no more of these—Tell me of trancèd trees;(The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare)Show me the leafy home of the wild bees;Show me the snowy summits dim in air;Tell me of things afarIn valleys silent under moon and star:Dim hollows hushed with night,The lofty cedars misty in the light,Wild clusters of the vine,Wild odors of the pine,The eagle’s eyrie lifted to the moon—High places where on quiet afternoonA shadow swiftens by, a thrilling screamStartles the cliff, and dies across the woodland to a dream.
Ha, nowHe springs from the bough,It flickers—he is lost!Out of the copse he sprang;This is the floating briar where he tossed:The leaves are yet atremble where he sang.Here a long vista opens—look!This is the way he took,Through the pale poplars by the pond:Hark! he is shouting in the field beyond.Ho, there he goesThrough the alder close!He leaves me here behind him in his flight,And yet my heart goes with him out of sight!What whispered spellOf Faëry calls me on from dell to dell?I hear the voice—it wanders in a dream—Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on the fading stream.
Lead on—you know the way—Lead on to Arcady,O’er fields asleep; by river bank abrim;Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim;By dripping rocks, dark dwellings of the gnome,Where hurrying waters dash their crests to foam.I follow where you lead,Down winding paths, across the flowery mead,Down silent hollows where the woodbine blows,Up water-courses scented by the rose.I follow the wandering voice—I follow, I rejoice,I fade away into the Age of Gold—We two together lost in forest old.—O ferny and thymy paths, O fields of Aidenn,Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod!O souls that weary and are heavy laden,Here is the peace of God!
Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the way:Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray;From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run,With sudden apprehension of the sun;A light wind stirsThe filmy tops of delicate dim firs,And on the river border blows,Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose.Sing out, O throstle, sing:I follow on, my king:Lead me forever through the crimson dawn—Till the world ends, lead me on!Ho there! he shouts again—he sways—and now,Upspringing from the bough,Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground,Without a soundHe drops into a valley and is gone!
I hear you, little bird,Shouting aswing above the broken wall.Shout louder yet: no song can tell it all.Sing to my soul in the deep still wood:’Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word:I’d tell it, too, if I could.Oft when the white, still dawnLifted the skies and pushed the hills apart,I’ve felt it like a glory in my heart—(The world’s mysterious stir)But had no throat like yours, my bird,Nor such a listener.
I hear you, little bird,Shouting aswing above the broken wall.Shout louder yet: no song can tell it all.Sing to my soul in the deep still wood:’Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word:I’d tell it, too, if I could.Oft when the white, still dawnLifted the skies and pushed the hills apart,I’ve felt it like a glory in my heart—(The world’s mysterious stir)But had no throat like yours, my bird,Nor such a listener.
I hear you, little bird,Shouting aswing above the broken wall.Shout louder yet: no song can tell it all.Sing to my soul in the deep still wood:’Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word:I’d tell it, too, if I could.
Oft when the white, still dawnLifted the skies and pushed the hills apart,I’ve felt it like a glory in my heart—(The world’s mysterious stir)But had no throat like yours, my bird,Nor such a listener.
Once, I remember, the world was young;The rills rejoiced with a silver tongue;The field-lark sat in the wheat and sang;The thrush’s shout in the woodland rang;The cliffs and the perilous sands afarWere softened to mist by the morning star;For Youth was with me (I know it now!),And a light shone out from his wreathèd brow.He turned the fields to enchanted ground,He touched the rains with a dreamy sound.But alas, he vanished, and Time appeared,The Spirit of Ages, old and weird.He crushed and scattered my beamy wings;He dragged me forth from the court of kings;He gave me doubt and a bloom of beard,This Spirit of Ages, old and weird.The wonder went from the field of corn,The glory died on the craggy horn;And suddenly all was strange and gray,And the rocks came out on the trodden way.I hear no more the wild thrush sing:He is silent now on the peach aswing.Something is gone from the house of mirth—Something is gone from the hills of Earth.Time hurries me on with a wizard hand;He turns the Earth to a homeless land;He stays my life with a stingy breath,And darkens its depths with foreknowledge of death;Calls memories back on their path apace;Sends desperate thoughts to the soul’s dim place.Time murders our youth with his sorrow and sin,And pushes us on to the windowless inn.
Once, I remember, the world was young;The rills rejoiced with a silver tongue;The field-lark sat in the wheat and sang;The thrush’s shout in the woodland rang;The cliffs and the perilous sands afarWere softened to mist by the morning star;For Youth was with me (I know it now!),And a light shone out from his wreathèd brow.He turned the fields to enchanted ground,He touched the rains with a dreamy sound.But alas, he vanished, and Time appeared,The Spirit of Ages, old and weird.He crushed and scattered my beamy wings;He dragged me forth from the court of kings;He gave me doubt and a bloom of beard,This Spirit of Ages, old and weird.The wonder went from the field of corn,The glory died on the craggy horn;And suddenly all was strange and gray,And the rocks came out on the trodden way.I hear no more the wild thrush sing:He is silent now on the peach aswing.Something is gone from the house of mirth—Something is gone from the hills of Earth.Time hurries me on with a wizard hand;He turns the Earth to a homeless land;He stays my life with a stingy breath,And darkens its depths with foreknowledge of death;Calls memories back on their path apace;Sends desperate thoughts to the soul’s dim place.Time murders our youth with his sorrow and sin,And pushes us on to the windowless inn.
Once, I remember, the world was young;The rills rejoiced with a silver tongue;The field-lark sat in the wheat and sang;The thrush’s shout in the woodland rang;The cliffs and the perilous sands afarWere softened to mist by the morning star;For Youth was with me (I know it now!),And a light shone out from his wreathèd brow.He turned the fields to enchanted ground,He touched the rains with a dreamy sound.
But alas, he vanished, and Time appeared,The Spirit of Ages, old and weird.He crushed and scattered my beamy wings;He dragged me forth from the court of kings;He gave me doubt and a bloom of beard,This Spirit of Ages, old and weird.The wonder went from the field of corn,The glory died on the craggy horn;And suddenly all was strange and gray,And the rocks came out on the trodden way.
I hear no more the wild thrush sing:He is silent now on the peach aswing.Something is gone from the house of mirth—Something is gone from the hills of Earth.Time hurries me on with a wizard hand;He turns the Earth to a homeless land;He stays my life with a stingy breath,And darkens its depths with foreknowledge of death;Calls memories back on their path apace;Sends desperate thoughts to the soul’s dim place.
Time murders our youth with his sorrow and sin,And pushes us on to the windowless inn.
I know by the stir of the branchesThe way she went;And at times I can see where a stemOf the grass is bent.She’s the secret and light of my life,She allures to elude;But I follow the spell of her beautyWhatever the mood.I have followed all night in the hills,And my breath is deep,But she flies on before like a voiceIn the vale of sleep.I follow the print of her feetIn the wild river bed,And lo, she calls gleefully downFrom a cliff overhead.
I know by the stir of the branchesThe way she went;And at times I can see where a stemOf the grass is bent.She’s the secret and light of my life,She allures to elude;But I follow the spell of her beautyWhatever the mood.I have followed all night in the hills,And my breath is deep,But she flies on before like a voiceIn the vale of sleep.I follow the print of her feetIn the wild river bed,And lo, she calls gleefully downFrom a cliff overhead.
I know by the stir of the branchesThe way she went;And at times I can see where a stemOf the grass is bent.She’s the secret and light of my life,She allures to elude;But I follow the spell of her beautyWhatever the mood.
I have followed all night in the hills,And my breath is deep,But she flies on before like a voiceIn the vale of sleep.I follow the print of her feetIn the wild river bed,And lo, she calls gleefully downFrom a cliff overhead.
Wail, wail, wail,For the fleering world goes down:Into the song of the poet paleMixes the laugh of the clown.Grim, grim, grim,Is the road we go to the dead;Yet we must on, for a Something dimPushes the soul ahead.Where, where, where,Through the dust and shadow of thingsWill the fleeing Fates with their wild manes bearThese tribes of slaves and kings?
Wail, wail, wail,For the fleering world goes down:Into the song of the poet paleMixes the laugh of the clown.Grim, grim, grim,Is the road we go to the dead;Yet we must on, for a Something dimPushes the soul ahead.Where, where, where,Through the dust and shadow of thingsWill the fleeing Fates with their wild manes bearThese tribes of slaves and kings?
Wail, wail, wail,For the fleering world goes down:Into the song of the poet paleMixes the laugh of the clown.
Grim, grim, grim,Is the road we go to the dead;Yet we must on, for a Something dimPushes the soul ahead.
Where, where, where,Through the dust and shadow of thingsWill the fleeing Fates with their wild manes bearThese tribes of slaves and kings?
One secret night, I stood where ocean poursEternal waters on the yellow shores,And saw the drift of fays that Prosper saw:(Their feet had no more sound than blowing straw.)And little hands held light in little handsThey chased a fleeing billow down the sands,But turned in the nick o’ time, and mad with gleeRaced back again before the swelling sea.
One secret night, I stood where ocean poursEternal waters on the yellow shores,And saw the drift of fays that Prosper saw:(Their feet had no more sound than blowing straw.)And little hands held light in little handsThey chased a fleeing billow down the sands,But turned in the nick o’ time, and mad with gleeRaced back again before the swelling sea.
One secret night, I stood where ocean poursEternal waters on the yellow shores,And saw the drift of fays that Prosper saw:(Their feet had no more sound than blowing straw.)And little hands held light in little handsThey chased a fleeing billow down the sands,But turned in the nick o’ time, and mad with gleeRaced back again before the swelling sea.
There came gray stretches of volcanic plains,Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill,Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw.Around were heaps of ruins piled betweenThe Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care;And from the stillness of the down-crushed wallsOne pillar rose up dark against the moon.There was a nameless Presence everywhere;In the gray soil there was a purple stain,And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood—Blood of a vast unknown Calamity.It was the mark of some ancestral grief—Grief that began before the ancient Flood.
There came gray stretches of volcanic plains,Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill,Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw.Around were heaps of ruins piled betweenThe Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care;And from the stillness of the down-crushed wallsOne pillar rose up dark against the moon.There was a nameless Presence everywhere;In the gray soil there was a purple stain,And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood—Blood of a vast unknown Calamity.It was the mark of some ancestral grief—Grief that began before the ancient Flood.
There came gray stretches of volcanic plains,Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill,Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw.Around were heaps of ruins piled betweenThe Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care;And from the stillness of the down-crushed wallsOne pillar rose up dark against the moon.There was a nameless Presence everywhere;In the gray soil there was a purple stain,And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood—Blood of a vast unknown Calamity.It was the mark of some ancestral grief—Grief that began before the ancient Flood.
Just then the branches lightly stirred....See, out o’ the apple boughs a birdBursts music-mad into the blue abyss:Rothschild would give his gold for this—The wealth of nations, if he knew:(And find a profit in the business, too.)
Just then the branches lightly stirred....See, out o’ the apple boughs a birdBursts music-mad into the blue abyss:Rothschild would give his gold for this—The wealth of nations, if he knew:(And find a profit in the business, too.)
Just then the branches lightly stirred....See, out o’ the apple boughs a birdBursts music-mad into the blue abyss:Rothschild would give his gold for this—The wealth of nations, if he knew:(And find a profit in the business, too.)
O friend, we never choose the better part,Until we set the Cross up in the heart.I know I can not live until I die—Till I am nailed upon it wild and high,And sleep in the tomb for a full three days dead,With angels at the feet and at the head.But then in a great brightness I shall riseTo walk with stiller feet below the skies.
O friend, we never choose the better part,Until we set the Cross up in the heart.I know I can not live until I die—Till I am nailed upon it wild and high,And sleep in the tomb for a full three days dead,With angels at the feet and at the head.But then in a great brightness I shall riseTo walk with stiller feet below the skies.
O friend, we never choose the better part,Until we set the Cross up in the heart.I know I can not live until I die—Till I am nailed upon it wild and high,And sleep in the tomb for a full three days dead,With angels at the feet and at the head.But then in a great brightness I shall riseTo walk with stiller feet below the skies.
Here the poppy hosts assemble:How they startle, how they tremble!All their royal hoods unpinnedBlow out lightly in the wind.Here is gold to labor for;Here is pillage worth a war.Men that in the cities grind,Come! before the heart is blind.
Here the poppy hosts assemble:How they startle, how they tremble!All their royal hoods unpinnedBlow out lightly in the wind.Here is gold to labor for;Here is pillage worth a war.Men that in the cities grind,Come! before the heart is blind.
Here the poppy hosts assemble:How they startle, how they tremble!All their royal hoods unpinnedBlow out lightly in the wind.Here is gold to labor for;Here is pillage worth a war.
Men that in the cities grind,Come! before the heart is blind.
I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;I have found my life and am satisfied.Onward I ride in the blowing oats,Checking the field-lark’s rippling notes—Lightly I sweepFrom steep to steep:Over my head through the branches highCome glimpses of a rushing sky;The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks;Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;A bee booms out of the scented grass;A jay laughs with me as I pass.I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forgetLife’s hoard of regret—All the terror and painOf the chafing chain.Grind on, O cities, grind:I leave you a blur behind.I am lifted elate—the skies expand:Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand.Let them weary and work in their narrow walls:I ride with the voices of waterfalls!I swing on as one in a dream—I swingDown the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!The world is gone like an empty word:My body’s a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!
I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;I have found my life and am satisfied.Onward I ride in the blowing oats,Checking the field-lark’s rippling notes—Lightly I sweepFrom steep to steep:Over my head through the branches highCome glimpses of a rushing sky;The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks;Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;A bee booms out of the scented grass;A jay laughs with me as I pass.I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forgetLife’s hoard of regret—All the terror and painOf the chafing chain.Grind on, O cities, grind:I leave you a blur behind.I am lifted elate—the skies expand:Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand.Let them weary and work in their narrow walls:I ride with the voices of waterfalls!I swing on as one in a dream—I swingDown the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!The world is gone like an empty word:My body’s a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!
I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;I have found my life and am satisfied.Onward I ride in the blowing oats,Checking the field-lark’s rippling notes—Lightly I sweepFrom steep to steep:Over my head through the branches highCome glimpses of a rushing sky;The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks;Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;A bee booms out of the scented grass;A jay laughs with me as I pass.
I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forgetLife’s hoard of regret—All the terror and painOf the chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind:I leave you a blur behind.I am lifted elate—the skies expand:Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand.Let them weary and work in their narrow walls:I ride with the voices of waterfalls!
I swing on as one in a dream—I swingDown the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!The world is gone like an empty word:My body’s a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!