Produced by Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders COLLECTED POEMS 1901-1918 BY WALTER DE LA MARE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I 1920 * * * * * CONTENTS POEMS: 1906 LYRICAL POEMS-- SHADOW UNREGARDING THEY TOLD ME SORCERY THE CHILDREN OF STARE AGE THE GLIMPSE REMEMBRANCE TREACHERY IN VAIN THE MIRACLE KEEP INNOCENCY THE PHANTOM VOICES THULE THE BIRTHNIGHT: TO F. THE DEATH-DREAM "WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" FOREBODING VAIN FINDING NAPOLEON ENGLAND TRUCE EVENING NIGHT THE UNIVERSE GLORIA MUNDI IDLENESS GOLIATH CHARACTERS FROM SHAKESPEARE-- FALSTAFF MACBETH BANQUO MERCUTIO JULIET'S NURSE IAGO IMOGEN POLONIUS OPHELIA HAMLET SONNETS-- THE HAPPY ENCOUNTER APRIL SEA-MAGIC THE MARKET-PLACE ANATOMY EVEN IN THE GRAVE BRIGHT LIFE HUMANITY VIRTUE MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD-- REVERIE THE MASSACRE ECHO FEAR THE MERMAIDS MYSELF AUTUMN WINTER ENVOI: TO MY MOTHER THE LISTENERS: 1914 THE THREE CHERRY TREES OLD SUSAN OLD BEN MISS LOO THE TAILOR MARTHA THE SLEEPER THE KEYS OF MORNING RACHEL ALONE THE BELLS THE SCARECROW NOD THE BINDWEED WINTER THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER ESTRANGED THE TIRED CUPID DREAMS FAITHLESS THE SHADE BE ANGRY NOW NO MORE EXILE WHERE? MUSIC UNHEARD ALL THAT'S PAST WHEN THE ROSE IS FADED SLEEP THE STRANGER NEVER MORE SAILOR ARABIA THE MOUNTAINS QUEEN DJENIRA NEVER-TO-BE THE DARK CHÂTEAU THE DWELLING-PLACE THE LISTENERS TIME PASSES BEWARE! THE JOURNEY HAUNTED SILENCE WINTER DUSK THE GHOST AN EPITAPH "THE HAWTHORN HATH A DEATHLY SMELL" MOTLEY: 1918 THE LITTLE SALAMANDER THE LINNET THE SUNKEN GARDEN THE RIDDLERS MOONLIGHT THE BLIND BOY THE QUARRY MRS. GRUNDY THE TRYST ALONE THE EMPTY HOUSE MISTRESS FELL THE GHOST THE STRANGER BETRAYAL THE CAGE THE REVENANT MUSIC THE REMONSTRANCE NOCTURNE THE EXILE THE UNCHANGING INVOCATION EYES LIFE THE DISGUISE VAIN QUESTIONING VIGIL THE OLD MEN THE DREAMER MOTLEY THE MARIONETTES TO E.T.: 1917 APRIL MOON THE FOOL'S SONG CLEAR EYES DUST TO DUST THE THREE STRANGERS ALEXANDER THE REAWAKENING THE VACANT DAY THE FLIGHT FOR ALL THE GRIEF THE SCRIBE FARE WELL * * * * * POEMS: 1906 TO HENRY NEWBOLT * * * * * LYRICAL POEMS * * * * * THEY TOLD ME They told me Pan was dead, but I Oft marvelled who it was that sang Down the green valleys languidly Where the grey elder-thickets hang. Sometimes I thought it was a bird My soul had charged with sorcery; Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard Inland the sorrow of the sea. But even where the primrose sets The seal of her pale loveliness, I found amid the violets Tears of an antique bitterness. SORCERY "What voice is that I hear Crying across the pool?" "It is the voice of Pan you hear, Crying his sorceries shrill and clear, In the twilight dim and cool." "What song is it he sings, Echoing from afar; While the sweet swallow bends her wings, Filling the air with twitterings, Beneath the brightening star?" The woodman answered me, His faggot on his back:-- "Seek not the face of Pan to see; Flee from his clear note summoning thee To darkness deep and black!" "He dwells in thickest shade, Piping his notes forlorn Of sorrow never to be allayed; Turn from his coverts sad Of twilight unto morn!" The woodman passed away Along the forest path; His ax shone keen and grey In the last beams of day: And all was still as death:-- Only Pan singing sweet Out of Earth's fragrant shade; I dreamed his eyes to meet, And found but shadow laid Before my tired feet. Comes no more dawn to me, Nor bird of open skies. Only his woods' deep gloom I see Till, at the end of all, shall rise, Afar and tranquilly, Death's stretching sea. THE CHILDREN OF STARE Winter is fallen early On the house of Stare; Birds in reverberating flocks Haunt its ancestral box; Bright are the plenteous berries In clusters in the air. Still is the fountain's music, The dark pool icy still, Whereupon a small and sanguine sun Floats in a mirror on, Into a West of crimson, From a South of daffodil. 'Tis strange to see young children In such a wintry house; Like rabbits' on the frozen snow Their tell-tale footprints go; Their laughter rings like timbrels 'Neath evening ominous: Their small and heightened faces Like wine-red winter buds; Their frolic bodies gentle as Flakes in the air that pass, Frail as the twirling petal From the briar of the woods. Above them silence lours, Still as an arctic sea; Light fails; night falls; the wintry moon Glitters; the crocus soon Will ope grey and distracted On earth's austerity: Thick mystery, wild peril, Law like an iron rod:-- Yet sport they on in Spring's attire, Each with his tiny fire Blown to a core of ardour By the awful breath of God. AGE This ugly old crone-- Every beauty she had When a maid, when a maid. Her beautiful eyes, Too youthful, too wise, Seemed ever to come To so lightless a home, Cold and dull as a stone. And her cheeks--who would guess Cheeks cadaverous as this Once with colours were gay As the flower on its spray? Who would ever believe Aught could bring one to grieve So much as to make Lips bent for love's sake So thin and so grey? O Youth, come away! As she asks in her lone, This old, desolate crone. She loves us no more; She is too old to care For the charms that of yore Made her body so fair. Past repining, past care, She lives but to bear One or two fleeting years Earth's indifference: her tears Have lost now their heat; Her hands and her feet Now shake but to be Shed as leaves from a tree; And her poor heart beats on Like a sea--the storm gone. THE GLIMPSE Art thou asleep? or have thy wings Wearied of my unchanging skies? Or, haply, is it fading dreams Are in my eyes? Not even an echo in my heart Tells me the courts thy feet trod last, Bare as a leafless wood it is, The summer past. My inmost mind is like a book The reader dulls with lassitude, Wherein the same old lovely words Sound poor and rude. Yet through this vapid surface, I Seem to see old-time deeps; I see, Past the dark painting of the hour, Life's ecstasy. Only a moment; as when day Is set, and in the shade of night, Through all the clouds that compassed her, Stoops into sight Pale, changeless, everlasting Dian, Gleams on the prone Endymion, Troubles the dulness of his dreams: And then is gone. REMEMBRANCE The sky was like a waterdrop In shadow of a thorn, Clear, tranquil, beautiful, Dark, forlorn. Lightning along its margin ran; A rumour of the sea Rose in profundity and sank Into infinity. Lofty and few the elms, the stars In the vast boughs most bright; I stood a dreamer in a dream In the unstirring night. Not wonder, worship, not even peace Seemed in my heart to be: Only the memory of one, Of all most dead to me. TREACHERY She had amid her ringlets bound Green leaves to rival their dark hue; How could such locks with beauty bound Dry up their dew, Wither them through and through? She had within her dark eyes lit Sweet fires to burn all doubt away; Yet did those fires, in darkness lit, Burn but a day, Not even till twilight stay. She had within a dusk of words A vow in simple splendour set; How, in the memory of such words, Could she forget That vow--the soul of it? IN VAIN I knocked upon thy door ajar, While yet the woods with buds were grey; Nought but a little child I heard Warbling at break of day. I knocked when June had lured her rose To mask the sharpness of its thorn; Knocked yet again, heard only yet Thee singing of the morn. The frail convolvulus had wreathed Its cup, but the faint flush of eve Lingered upon thy Western wall; Thou hadst no word to give. Once yet I came; the winter stars Above thy house wheeled wildly bright; Footsore I stood before thy door-- Wide open into night. THE MIRACLE Who beckons the green ivy up Its solitary tower of stone? What spirit lures the bindweed's cup Unfaltering on? Calls even the starry lichen to climb By agelong inches endless Time? Who bids the hollyhock uplift Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high; Fling wide her petals--silent, swift, Lovely to the sky? Since as she kindled, so she will fade, Flower above flower in squalor laid. Ever the heavy billow rears All its sea-length in green, hushed wall; But totters as the shore it nears, Foams to its fall; Where was its mark? on what vain quest Rose that great water from its rest? So creeps ambition on; so climb Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high, Forgets his birth, small space, brief time, That he shall die; Dreams blindly in his dark, still air; Consumes his strength; strips himself bare; Rejects delight, ease, pleasure, hope, Seeking in vain, but seeking yet, Past earthly promise, earthly scope, On one aim set: As if, like Chaucer's child, he thought All but "O Alma!" nought. KEEP INNOCENCY Like an old battle, youth is wild With bugle and spear, and counter cry, Fanfare and drummery, yet a child Dreaming of that sweet chivalry, The piercing terror cannot see. He, with a mild and serious eye Along the azure of the years, Sees the sweet pomp sweep hurtling by; But he sees not death's blood and tears, Sees not the plunging of the spears. And all the strident horror of Horse and rider, in red defeat, Is only music fine enough To lull him into slumber sweet In fields where ewe and lambkin bleat. O, if with such simplicity Himself take arms and suffer war; With beams his targe shall gilded be, Though in the thickening gloom be far The steadfast light of any star! Though hoarse War's eagle on him perch, Quickened with guilty lightnings--there It shall in vain for terror search, Where a child's eyes beneath bloody hair Gaze purely through the dingy air. And when the wheeling rout is spent, Though in the heaps of slain he lie; Or lonely in his last content; Quenchless shall burn in secrecy The flame Death knows his victors by. THE PHANTOM Wilt thou never come again, Beauteous one? Yet the woods are green and dim, Yet the birds' deluding cry Echoes in the hollow sky, Yet the falling waters brim The clear pool which thou wast fain To paint thy lovely cheek upon, Beauteous one! I may see the thorny rose Stir and wake The dark dewdrop on her gold; But thy secret will she keep Half-divulged--yet all untold, Since a child's heart woke from sleep. The faltering sunbeam fades and goes; The night-bird whistles in the brake; The willows quake; Utter darkness walls; the wind Sighs no more. Yet it seems the silence yearns But to catch thy fleeting foot; Yet the wandering glowworm burns Lest her lamp should light thee not-- Thee whom I shall never find; Though thy shadow lean before, Thou thyself return'st no more-- Never more. All the world's woods, tree o'er tree, Come to nought. Birds, flowers, beasts, how transient they, Angels of a flying day. Love is quenched; dreams drown in sleep; Ruin nods along the deep: Only thou immortally Hauntest on This poor earth in Time's flux caught; Hauntest on, pursued, unwon, Phantom child of memory, Beauteous one! VOICES Who is it calling by the darkened river Where the moss lies smooth and deep, And the dark trees lean unmoving arms, Silent and vague in sleep, And the bright-heeled constellations pass In splendour through the gloom; Who is it calling o'er the darkened river In music, "Come!"? Who is it wandering in the summer meadows Where the children stoop and play In the green faint-scented flowers, spinning The guileless hours away? Who touches their bright hair? who puts A wind-shell to each cheek, Whispering betwixt its breathing silences, "Seek! seek!"? Who is it watching in the gathering twilight When the curfew bird hath flown On eager wings, from song to silence, To its darkened nest alone? Who takes for brightening eyes the stars, For locks the still moonbeam, Sighs through the dews of evening peacefully Falling, "Dream!"? THULE If thou art sweet as they are sad Who on the shores of Time's salt sea Watch on the dim horizon fade Ships bearing love to night and thee; If past all beacons Hope hath lit In the dark wanderings of the deep They who unwilling traverse it Dream not till dawn unseal their sleep; Ah, cease not in thy winds to mock Us, who yet wake, but cannot see Thy distant shores; who at each shock Of the waves' onset faint for thee! THE BIRTHNIGHT: TO F. Dearest, it was a night That in its darkness rocked Orion's stars; A sighing wind ran faintly white Along the willows, and the cedar boughs Laid their wide hands in stealthy peace across The starry silence of their antique moss: No sound save rushing air Cold, yet all sweet with Spring, And in thy mother's arms, couched weeping there, Thou, lovely thing. THE DEATH-DREAM Who, now, put dreams into thy slumbering mind? Who, with bright Fear's lean taper, crossed a hand Athwart its beam, and stooping, truth maligned, Spake so thy spirit speech should understand, And with a dread "He's dead!" awaked a peal Of frenzied bells along the vacant ways Of thy poor earthly heart; waked thee to steal, Like dawn distraught upon unhappy days, To prove nought, nothing? Was it Time's large voice Out of the inscrutable future whispered so? Or but the horror of a little noise Earth wakes at dead of night? Or does Love know When his sweet wings weary and droop, and even In sleep cries audibly a shrill remorse? Or, haply, was it I who out of dream Stole but a little where shadows course, Called back to thee across the eternal stream? "WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" None, none can tell where I shall be When the unclean earth covers me; Only in surety if thou cry Where my perplexed ashes lie, Know, 'tis but death's necessity That keeps my tongue from answering thee. Even if no more my shadow may Lean for a moment in thy day; No more the whole earth lighten, as if, Thou near, it had nought else to give: Surely 'tis but Heaven's strategy To prove death immortality. Yet should I sleep--and no more dream, Sad would the last awakening seem, If my cold heart, with love once hot, Had thee in sleep remembered not: How could I wake to find that I Had slept alone, yet easefully? Or should in sleep glad visions come: Sick, in an alien land, for home Would be my eyes in their bright beam; Awake, we know 'tis not a dream; Asleep, some devil in the mind Might truest thoughts with false enwind. Life is a mockery if death Have the least power men say it hath. As to a hound that mewing waits, Death opens, and shuts to, his gates; Else even dry bones might rise and say,-- "'Tis _ye_ are dead and laid away." Innocent children out of nought Build up a universe of thought, And out of silence fashion Heaven: So, dear, is this poor dying even, Seeing thou shall be touched, heard, seen, Better than when dust stood between. FOREBODING Thou canst not see him standing by-- Time--with a poppied hand Stealing thy youth's simplicity, Even as falls unceasingly His waning sand. He will pluck thy childish roses, as Summer from her bush Strips all the loveliness that was; Even to the silence evening has Thy laughter hush. Thy locks too faint for earthly gold, The meekness of thine eyes, He will darken and dim, and to his fold Drive, 'gainst the night, thy stainless, old Innocencies; Thy simple words confuse and mar, Thy tenderest thoughts delude, Draw a long cloud athwart thy star, Still with loud timbrels heaven's far Faint interlude. Thou canst not see; I see, dearest; O, then, yet patient be, Though love refuse thy heart all rest, Though even love wax angry, lest Love should lose _thee_? VAIN FINDING Ever before my face there went Betwixt earth's buds and me A beauty beyond earth's content, A hope--half memory: Till in the woods one evening-- Ah! eyes as dark as they, Fastened on mine unwontedly, Grey, and dear heart, how grey! NAPOLEON "What is the world, O soldiers? It is I: I, this incessant snow, This northern sky; Soldiers, this solitude Through which we go Is I." ENGLAND No lovelier hills than thine have laid My tired thoughts to rest: No peace of lovelier valleys made Like peace within my breast. Thine are the woods whereto my soul, Out of the noontide beam, Flees for a refuge green and cool And tranquil as a dream. Thy breaking seas like trumpets peal; Thy clouds--how oft have I Watched their bright towers of silence steal Into infinity! My heart within me faults to roam In thought even far from thee: Thine be the grave whereto I come, And thine my darkness be. TRUCE Far inland here Death's pinions mocked the roar Of English seas; We sleep to wake no more, Hushed, and at ease; Till sound a trump, shore on to echoing shore, Rouse from a peace, unwonted then to war, Us and our enemies. EVENING When twilight darkens, and one by one, The sweet birds to their nests have gone; When to green banks the glow-worms bring Pale lamps to brighten evening; Then stirs in his thick sleep the owl Through the dewy air to prowl. Hawking the meadows swiftly he flits, While the small mouse atrembling sits With tiny eye of fear upcast Until his brooding shape be past, Hiding her where the moonbeams beat, Casting black shadows in the wheat. Now all is still: the field-man is Lapped deep in slumbering silentness. Not a leaf stirs, but clouds on high Pass in dim flocks across the sky, Puffed by a breeze too light to move Aught but these wakeful sheep above. O what an arch of light now spans These fields by night no longer Man's! Their ancient Master is abroad, Walking beneath the moonlight cold: His presence is the stillness, He Fills earth with wonder and mystery. NIGHT All from the light of the sweet moon Tired men lie now abed; Actionless, full of visions, soon Vanishing, soon sped. The starry night aflock with beams Of crystal light scarce stirs: Only its birds--the cocks, the streams, Call 'neath heaven's wanderers. All silent; all hearts still; Love, cunning, fire fallen low: When faint morn straying on the hill Sighs, and his soft airs flow. THE UNIVERSE I heard a little child beneath the stars Talk as he ran along To some sweet riddle in his mind that seemed A-tiptoe into song. In his dark eyes lay a wild universe,-- Wild forests, peaks, and crests; Angels and fairies, giants, wolves and he Were that world's only guests. Elsewhere was home and mother, his warm bed:-- Now, only God alone Could, armed with all His power and wisdom, make Earths richer than his own. O Man!--thy dreams, thy passions, hopes, desires!-- He in his pity keep A homely bed where love may lull a child's Fond Universe asleep! GLORIA MUNDI Upon a bank, easeless with knobs of gold, Beneath a canopy of noonday smoke, I saw a measureless Beast, morose and bold, With eyes like one from filthy dreams awoke, Who stares upon the daylight in despair For very terror of the nothing there. This beast in one flat hand clutched vulture-wise A glittering image of itself in jet, And with the other groped about its eyes To drive away the dreams that pestered it; And never ceased its coils to toss and beat The mire encumbering its feeble feet. Sharp was its hunger, though continually It seemed a cud of stones to ruminate, And often like a dog let glittering lie This meatless fare, its foolish gaze to sate; Once more convulsively to stoop its jaw, Or seize the morsel with an envious paw. Indeed, it seemed a hidden enemy Must lurk within the clouds above that bank, It strained so wildly its pale, stubborn eye, To pierce its own foul vapours dim and dank; Till, wearied out, it raved in wrath and foam, Daring that Nought Invisible to come. Ay, and it seemed some strange delight to find In this unmeaning din, till, suddenly, As if it heard a rumour on the wind, Or far away its freer children cry, Lifting its face made-quiet, there it stayed, Till died the echo its own rage had made. That place alone was barren where it lay; Flowers bloomed beyond, utterly sweet and fair; And even its own dull heart might think to stay In livelong thirst of a clear river there, Flowing from unseen hills to unheard seas, Through a still vale of yew and almond trees. And then I spied in the lush green below Its tortured belly, One, like silver, pale, With fingers closed upon a rope of straw, That bound the Beast, squat neck to hoary tail; Lonely in all that verdure faint and deep, He watched the monster as a shepherd sheep. I marvelled at the power, strength, and rage Of this poor creature in such slavery bound; Tettered with worms of fear; forlorn with age; Its blue wing-stumps stretched helpless on the ground; While twilight faded into darkness deep, And he who watched it piped its pangs asleep. IDLENESS I saw old Idleness, fat, with great cheeks Puffed to the huge circumference of a sigh, But past all tinge of apples long ago. His boyish fingers twiddled up and down The filthy remnant of a cup of physic That thicked in odour all the while he stayed. His eyes were sad as fishes that swim up And stare upon an element not theirs Through a thin skin of shrewish water, then Turn on a languid fin, and dip down, down, Into unplumbed, vast, oozy deeps of dream. His stomach was his master, and proclaimed it; And never were such meagre puppets made The slaves of such a tyrant, as his thoughts Of that obese epitome of ills. Trussed up he sat, the mockery of himself; And when upon the wan green of his eye I marked the gathering lustre of a tear, Thought I myself must weep, until I caught A grey, smug smile of satisfaction smirch His pallid features at his misery. And laugh did I, to see the little snares He had set for pests to vex him: his great feet Prisoned in greater boots; so narrow a stool To seat such elephantine parts as his; Ay, and the book he read, a Hebrew Bible; And, to incite a gross and backward wit, An old, crabbed, wormed, Greek dictionary; and A foxy Ovid bound in dappled calf. GOLIATH Still as a mountain with dark pines and sun He stood between the armies, and his shout Rolled from the empyrean above the host: "Bid any little flea ye have come forth, And wince at death upon my finger-nail!" He turned his large-boned face; and all his steel Tossed into beams the lustre of the noon; And all the shaggy horror of his locks Rustled like locusts in a field of corn. The meagre pupil of his shameless eye Moved like a cormorant over a glassy sea. He stretched his limbs, and laughed into the air, To feel the groaning sinews of his breast, And the long gush of his swollen arteries pause: And, nodding, wheeled, towering in all his height. Then, like a wind that hushes, gazed and saw Down, down, far down upon the untroubled green A shepherd-boy that swung a little sling. Goliath shut his lids to drive that mote, Which vexed the eastern azure of his eye, Out of his vision; and stared down again. Yet stood the youth there, ruddy in the flare Of his vast shield, nor spake, nor quailed, gazed up, As one might scan a mountain to be scaled. Then, as it were, a voice unearthly still Cried in the cavern of his bristling ear, "His name is Death!" ... And, like the flush That dyes Sahara to its lifeless verge, His brows' bright brass flamed into sudden crimson; And his great spear leapt upward, lightning-like, Shaking a dreadful thunder in the air; Spun betwixt earth and sky, bright as a berg That hoards the sunlight in a myriad spires, Crashed: and struck echo through an army's heart. Then paused Goliath, and stared down again. And fleet-foot Fear from rolling orbs perceived Steadfast, unharmed, a stooping shepherd-boy Frowning upon the target of his face. And wrath tossed suddenly up once more his hand; And a deep groan grieved all his strength in him. He breathed; and, lost in dazzling darkness, prayed-- Besought his reins, his gloating gods, his youth: And turned to smite what he no more could see. Then sped the singing pebble-messenger, The chosen of the Lord from Israel's brooks, Fleet to its mark, and hollowed a light path Down to the appalling Babel of his brain. And like the smoke of dreaming Souffrière Dust rose in cloud, spread wide, slow silted down Softly all softly on his armour's blaze. * * * * * CHARACTERS FROM SHAKESPEARE * * * * * FALSTAFF 'Twas in a tavern that with old age stooped And leaned rheumatic rafters o'er his head-- A blowzed, prodigious man, which talked, and stared, And rolled, as if with purpose, a small eye Like a sweet Cupid in a cask of wine. I could not view his fatness for his soul, Which peeped like harmless lightnings and was gone; As haps to voyagers of the summer air. And when he laughed, Time trickled down those beams, As in a glass; and when in self-defence He puffed that paunch, and wagged that huge, Greek head, Nosed like a Punchinello, then it seemed An hundred widows swept in his small voice, Now tenor, and now bass of drummy war. He smiled, compact of loam, this orchard man; Mused like a midnight, webbed with moonbeam snares Of flitting Love; woke--and a King he stood, Whom all the world hath in sheer jest refused For helpless laughter's sake. And then, forfend! Bacchus and Jove reared vast Olympus there; And Pan leaned leering from Promethean eyes. "Lord!" sighed his aspect, weeping o'er the jest, "What simple mouse brought such a mountain forth?" MACBETH Rose, like dim battlements, the hills and reared Steep crags into the fading primrose sky; But in the desolate valleys fell small rain, Mingled with drifting cloud. I saw one come, Like the fierce passion of that vacant place, His face turned glittering to the evening sky; His eyes, like grey despair, fixed satelessly On the still, rainy turrets of the storm; And all his armour in a haze of blue. He held no sword, bare was his hand and clenched, As if to hide the inextinguishable blood Murder had painted there. And his wild mouth Seemed spouting echoes of deluded thoughts. Around his head, like vipers all distort, His locks shook, heavy-laden, at each stride. If fire may burn invisible to the eye; O, if despair strive everlastingly; Then haunted here the creature of despair, Fanning and fanning flame to lick upon A soul still childish in a blackened hell. BANQUO What dost thou here far from thy native place? What piercing influences of heaven have stirred Thy heart's last mansion all-corruptible to wake, To move, and in the sweets of wine and fire Sit tempting madness with unholy eyes? Begone, thou shuddering, pale anomaly! The dark presses without on yew and thorn; Stoops now the owl upon her lonely quest; The pomp runs high here, and our beauteous women Seek no cold witness--O, let murder cry, Too shrill for human ear, only to God. Come not in power to wreak so wild a vengeance! Thou knowest not now the limit of man's heart; He is beyond thy knowledge. Gaze not then, Horror enthroned lit with insanest light! MERCUTIO Along an avenue of almond-trees Came three girls chattering of their sweethearts three. And lo! Mercutio, with Byronic ease, Out of his philosophic eye cast all A mere flowered twig of thought, whereat-- Three hearts fell still as when an air dies out And Venus falters lonely o'er the sea. But when within the further mist of bloom His step and form were hid, the smooth child Ann Said, "La, and what eyes he had!" and Lucy said, "How sad a gentleman!" and Katherine, "I wonder, now, what mischief he was at." And these three also April hid away, Leaving the Spring faint with Mercutio. JULIET'S NURSE In old-world nursery vacant now of children, With posied walls, familiar, fair, demure, And facing southward o'er romantic streets, Sits yet and gossips winter's dark away One gloomy, vast, glossy, and wise, and sly: And at her side a cherried country cousin. Her tongue claps ever like a ram's sweet bell; There's not a name but calls a tale to mind-- Some marrowy patty of farce or melodram; There's not a soldier but hath babes in view; There's not on earth what minds not of the midwife: "O, widowhood that left me still espoused!" Beauty she sighs o'er, and she sighs o'er gold; Gold will buy all things, even a sweet husband, Else only Heaven is left and--farewell youth! Yet, strangely, in that money-haunted head, The sad, gemmed crucifix and incense blue Is childhood once again. Her memory Is like an ant-hill which a twig disturbs, But twig stilled never. And to see her face, Broad with sleek homely beams; her babied hands, Ever like 'lighting doves, and her small eyes-- Blue wells a-twinkle, arch and lewd and pious-- To darken all sudden into Stygian gloom, And paint disaster with uplifted whites, Is life's epitome. She prates and prates-- A waterbrook of words o'er twelve small pebbles. And when she dies--some grey, long, summer evening, When the bird shouts of childhood through the dusk, 'Neath night's faint tapers--then her body shall Lie stiff with silks of sixty thrifty years. IAGO A dark lean face, a narrow, slanting eye, Whose deeps of blackness one pale taper's beam Haunts with a fitting madness of desire; A heart whose cinder at the breath of passion Glows to a momentary core of heat Almost beyond indifference to endure: So parched Iago frets his life away. His scorn works ever in a brain whose wit This world hath fools too many and gross to seek. Ever to live incredibly alone, Masked, shivering, deadly, with a simple Moor Of idiot gravity, and one pale flower Whose chill would quench in everlasting peace His soul's unmeasured flame--O paradox! Might he but learn the trick!--to wear her heart One fragile hour of heedless innocence, And then, farewell, and the incessant grave. "O fool! O villain!"--'tis the shuttlecock Wit never leaves at rest. It is his fate To be a needle in a world of hay, Where honour is the flattery of the fool; Sin, a tame bauble; lies, a tiresome jest; Virtue, a silly, whitewashed block of wood For words to fell. Ah! but the secret lacking, The secret of the child, the bird, the night, Faded, flouted, bespattered, in days so far Hate cannot bitter them, nor wrath deny; Else were this Desdemona.... Why! Woman a harlot is, and life a nest Fouled by long ages of forked fools. And God-- Iago deals not with a tale so dull: To have made the world! Fie on thee, Artisan! IMOGEN Even she too dead! all languor on her brow, All mute humanity's last simpleness,-- And yet the roses in her cheeks unfallen! Can death haunt silence with a silver sound? Can death, that hushes all music to a close, Pluck one sweet wire scarce-audible that trembles, As if a little child, called Purity, Sang heedlessly on of his dear Imogen? Surely if some young flowers of Spring were put Into the tender hollow of her heart, 'Twould faintly answer, trembling in their petals. Poise but a wild bird's feather, it will stir On lips that even in silence wear the badge Only of truth. Let but a cricket wake, And sing of home, and bid her lids unseal The unspeakable hospitality of her eyes. O childless soul--call once her husband's name! And even if indeed from these green hills Of England, far, her spirit flits forlorn, Back to its youthful mansion it will turn, Back to the floods of sorrow these sweet locks Yet heavy bear in drops; and Night shall see Unwearying as her stars still Imogen, Pausing 'twixt death and life on one hushed word. POLONIUS There haunts in Time's bare house an active ghost, Enamoured of his name, Polonius. He moves small fingers much, and all his speech Is like a sampler of precisest words, Set in the pattern of a simpleton. His mirth floats eerily down chill corridors; His sigh--it is a sound that loves a keyhole; His tenderness a faint court-tarnished thing; His wisdom prates as from a wicker cage; His very belly is a pompous nought; His eye a page that hath forgot his errand. Yet in his brain--his spiritual brain-- Lies hid a child's demure, small, silver whistle Which, to his horror, God blows, unawares, And sets men staring. It is sad to think, Might he but don indeed thin flesh and blood, And pace important to Law's inmost room, He would see, much marvelling, one immensely wise, Named Bacon, who, at sound of his youth's step, Would turn and call him Cousin--for the likeness. OPHELIA There runs a crisscross pattern of small leaves Espalier, in a fading summer air, And there Ophelia walks, an azure flower, Whom wind, and snowflakes, and the sudden rain Of love's wild skies have purified to heaven. There is a beauty past all weeping now In that sweet, crooked mouth, that vacant smile; Only a lonely grey in those mad eyes, Which never on earth shall learn their loneliness. And when amid startled birds she sings lament, Mocking in hope the long voice of the stream, It seems her heart's lute hath a broken string. Ivy she hath, that to old ruin clings; And rosemary, that sees remembrance fade; And pansies, deeper than the gloom of dreams; But ah! if utterable, would this earth Remain the base, unreal thing it is? Better be out of sight of peering eyes; Out--out of hearing of all-useless words, Spoken of tedious tongues in heedless ears. And lest, at last, the world should learn heart-secrets; Lest that sweet wolf from some dim thicket steal; Better the glassy horror of the stream. HAMLET Umbrageous cedars murmuring symphonies Stooped in late twilight o'er dark Denmark's Prince: He sat, his eyes companioned with dream-- Lustrous large eyes that held the world in view As some entrancèd child's a puppet show. Darkness gave birth to the all-trembling stars, And a far roar of long-drawn cataracts, Flooding immeasurable night with sound. He sat so still, his very thoughts took wing, And, lightest Ariels, the stillness haunted With midge-like measures; but, at last, even they Sank 'neath the influences of his night. The sweet dust shed faint perfume in the gloom; Through all wild space the stars' bright arrows fell On the lone Prince--the troubled son of man-- On Time's dark waters in unearthly trouble: Then, as the roar increased, and one fair tower Of cloud took sky and stars with majesty, He rose, his face a parchment of old age, Sorrow hath scribbled o'er, and o'er, and o'er. * * * * * SONNETS * * * * * THE HAPPY ENCOUNTER I saw sweet Poetry turn troubled eyes On shaggy Science nosing in the grass, For by that way poor Poetry must pass On her long pilgrimage to Paradise. He snuffled, grunted, squealed; perplexed by flies, Parched, weatherworn, and near of sight, alas, From peering close where very little was In dens secluded from the open skies. But Poetry in bravery went down, And called his name, soft, clear, and fearlessly; Stooped low, and stroked his muzzle overgrown; Refreshed his drought with dew; wiped pure and free His eyes: and lo! laughed loud for joy to see In those grey deeps the azure of her own. APRIL Come, then, with showers; I love thy cloudy face Gilded with splendour of the sunbeam thro' The heedless glory of thy locks. I know The arch, sweet languor of thy fleeting grace, The windy lovebeams of thy dwelling-place, Thy dim dells where in azure bluebells blow, The brimming rivers where thy lightnings go Harmless and full and swift from race to race. Thou takest all young hearts captive with thine eyes; At rumour of thee the tongues of children ring Louder than bees; the golden poplars rise Like trumps of peace; and birds, on homeward wing, Fly mocking echoes shrill along the skies, Above the waves' grave diapasoning. SEA-MAGIC TO R.I. My heart faints in me for the distant sea. The roar of London is the roar of ire The lion utters in his old desire For Libya out of dim captivity. The long bright silver of Cheapside I see, Her gilded weathercocks on roof and spire Exulting eastward in the western fire; All things recall one heart-sick memory:-- Ever the rustle of the advancing foam, The surges' desolate thunder, and the cry As of some lone babe in the whispering sky; Ever I peer into the restless gloom To where a ship clad dim and loftily Looms steadfast in the wonder of her home. THE MARKET-PLACE My mind is like a clamorous market-place. All day in wind, rain, sun, its babel wells; Voice answering to voice in tumult swells. Chaffering and laughing, pushing for a place, My thoughts haste on, gay, strange, poor, simple, base; This one buys dust, and that a bauble sells: But none to any scrutiny hints or tells The haunting secrets hidden in each sad face. Dies down the clamour when the dark draws near; Strange looms the earth in twilight of the West, Lonely with one sweet star serene and clear, Dwelling, when all this place is hushed to rest, On vacant stall, gold, refuse, worst and best, Abandoned utterly in haste and fear. ANATOMY By chance my fingers, resting on my face, Stayed suddenly where in its orbit shone The lamp of all things beautiful; then on, Following more heedfully, did softly trace Each arch and prominence and hollow place That shall revealed be when all else is gone-- Warmth, colour, roundness--to oblivion, And nothing left but darkness and disgrace. Life like a moment passed seemed then to be; A transient dream this raiment that it wore; While spelled my hand out its mortality Made certain all that had seemed doubt before: Proved--O how vaguely, yet how lucidly!-- How much death does; and yet can do no more. EVEN IN THE GRAVE I laid my inventory at the hand Of Death, who in his gloomy arbour sate; And while he conned it, sweet and desolate I heard Love singing in that quiet land. He read the record even to the end-- The heedless, livelong injuries of Fate, The burden of foe, the burden of love and hate; The wounds of foe, the bitter wounds of friend: All, all, he read, ay, even the indifference, The vain talk, vainer silence, hope and dream. He questioned me: "What seek'st thou then instead?" I bowed my face in the pale evening gleam. Then gazed he on me with strange innocence: "Even in the grave thou wilt have thyself," he said. BRIGHT LIFE "Come now," I said, "put off these webs of death, Distract this leaden yearning of thine eyes From lichened banks of peace, sad mysteries Of dust fallen-in where passed the flitting breath: Turn thy sick thoughts from him that slumbereth In mouldered linen to the living skies, The sun's bright-clouded principalities, The salt deliciousness the sea-breeze hath! "Lay thy warm hand on earth's cold clods and think What exquisite greenness sprouts from these to grace The moving fields of summer; on the brink Of archèd waves the sea-horizon trace, Whence wheels night's galaxy; and in silence sink The pride in rapture of life's dwelling-place!" HUMANITY "Ever exulting in thyself, on fire To flaunt the purple of the Universe, To strut and strut, and thy great part rehearse; Ever the slave of every proud desire; Come now a little down where sports thy sire; Choose thy small better from thy abounding worse; Prove thou thy lordship who hadst dust for nurse, And for thy swaddling the primeval mire!" Then stooped our Manhood nearer, deep and still, As from earth's mountains an unvoyaged sea, Hushed my faint voice in its great peace until It seemed but a bird's cry in eternity; And in its future loomed the undreamable, And in its past slept simple men like me. VIRTUE Her breast is cold; her hands how faint and wan! And the deep wonder of her starry eyes Seemingly lost in cloudless Paradise, And all earth's sorrow out of memory gone. Yet sings her clear voice unrelenting on Of loveliest impossibilities; Though echo only answer her with sighs Of effort wasted and delights foregone. Spent, baffled, 'wildered, hated and despised, Her straggling warriors hasten to defeat; By wounds distracted, and by night surprised, Fall where death's darkness and oblivion meet: Yet, yet: O breast how cold! O hope how far! Grant my son's ashes lie where these men's are! * * * * * MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD * * * * * REVERIE Bring not bright candles, for his eyes In twilight have sweet company; Bring not bright candles, else they fly-- His phantoms fly-- Gazing aggrieved on thee! Bring not bright candles, startle not The phantoms of a vacant room, Flocking above a child that dreams-- Deep, deep in dreams,-- Hid, in the gathering gloom! Bring not bright candles to those eyes That between earth and stars descry, Lovelier for the shadows there, Children of air, Palaces in the sky! THE MASSACRE The shadow of a poplar tree Lay in that lake of sun, As I with my little sword went in-- Against a thousand, one. Haughty and infinitely armed, Insolent in their wrath, Plumed high with purple plumes they held The narrow meadow path. The air was sultry; all was still; The sun like flashing glass; And snip-snap my light-whispering steel In arcs of light did pass. Lightly and dull fell each proud head, Spiked keen without avail, Till swam my uncontented blade With ichor green and pale. And silence fell: the rushing sun Stood still in paths of heat, Gazing in waves of horror on The dead about my feet. Never a whir of wing, no bee Stirred o'er the shameful slain; Nought but a thirsty wasp crept in, Stooped, and came out again. The very air trembled in fear; Eclipsing shadow seemed Rising in crimson waves of gloom-- On one who dreamed. ECHO "Who called?" I said, and the words Through the whispering glades, Hither, thither, baffled the birds-- "Who called? Who called?" The leafy boughs on high Hissed in the sun; The dark air carried my cry Faintingly on: Eyes in the green, in the shade, In the motionless brake, Voices that said what I said, For mockery's sake: "Who cares?" I bawled through my tears; The wind fell low: In the silence, "Who cares? who cares?" Wailed to and fro. FEAR I know where lurk The eyes of Fear; I, I alone, Where shadowy-clear, Watching for me, Lurks Fear. 'Tis ever still And dark, despite All singing and All candlelight, 'Tis ever cold, And night. He touches me; Says quietly, "Stir not, nor whisper, I am nigh; Walk noiseless on, I am by!" He drives me As a dog a sheep; Like a cold stone I cannot weep. He lifts me Hot from sleep In marble hands To where on high The jewelled horror Of his eye Dares me to struggle Or cry. No breast wherein To chase away That watchful shape! Vain, vain to say "Haunt not with night The Day!" THE MERMAIDS Sand, sand; hills of sand; And the wind where nothing is Green and sweet of the land; No grass, no trees, No bird, no butterfly, But hills, hills of sand, And a burning sky. Sea, sea, mounds of the sea, Hollow, and dark, and blue, Flashing incessantly The whole sea through; No flower, no jutting root, Only the floor of the sea, With foam afloat. Blow, blow, winding shells; And the watery fish, Deaf to the hidden bells, In the water splash; No streaming gold, no eyes, Watching along the waves, But far-blown shells, faint bells, From the darkling caves. MYSELF There is a garden, grey With mists of autumntide; Under the giant boughs, Stretched green on every side, Along the lonely paths, A little child like me, With face, with hands, like mine, Plays ever silently; On, on, quite silently, When I am there alone, Turns not his head; lifts not his eyes; Heeds not as he plays on. After the birds are flown From singing in the trees, When all is grey, all silent, Voices, and winds, and bees; And I am there alone: Forlornly, silently, Plays in the evening garden Myself with me. AUTUMN There is a wind where the rose was; Cold rain where sweet grass was; And clouds like sheep Stream o'er the steep Grey skies where the lark was. Nought gold where your hair was; Nought warm where your hand was; But phantom, forlorn, Beneath the thorn, Your ghost where your face was. Sad winds where your voice was; Tears, tears where my heart was; And ever with me, Child, ever with me, Silence where hope was. WINTER Green Mistletoe! Oh, I remember now A dell of snow, Frost on the bough; None there but I: Snow, snow, and a wintry sky. None there but I, And footprints one by one, Zigzaggedly, Where I had run; Where shrill and powdery A robin sat in the tree. And he whistled sweet; And I in the crusted snow With snow-clubbed feet Jigged to and fro, Till, from the day, The rose-light ebbed away. And the robin flew Into the air, the air, The white mist through; And small and rare The night-frost fell In the calm and misty dell. And the dusk gathered low, And the silver moon and stars On the frozen snow Drew taper bars, Kindled winking fires In the hooded briers. And the sprawling Bear Growled deep in the sky; And Orion's hair Streamed sparkling by: But the North sighed low, "Snow, snow, more snow!" * * * * * ENVOI * * * * * TO MY MOTHER Thine is my all, how little when 'tis told Beside thy gold! Thine the first peace, and mine the livelong strife; Thine the clear dawn, and mine the night of life; Thine the unstained belief, Darkened in grief. Scarce even a flower but thine its beauty and name, Dimmed, yet the same; Never in twilight comes the moon to me, Stealing thro' those far woods, but tells of thee, Falls, dear, on my wild heart, And takes thy part. Thou art the child, and I--how steeped in age! A blotted page From that clear, little book life's taken away: How could I read it, dear, so dark the day? Be it all memory 'Twixt thee and me! * * * * * THE LISTENERS: 1914 * * * * * THE THREE CHERRY TREES There were three cherry trees once, Grew in a garden all shady; And there for delight of so gladsome a sight, Walked a most beautiful lady, Dreamed a most beautiful lady. Birds in those branches did sing, Blackbird and throstle and linnet, But she walking there was by far the most fair-- Lovelier than all else within it, Blackbird and throstle and linnet. But blossoms to berries do come, All hanging on stalks light and slender, And one long summer's day charmed that lady away, With vows sweet and merry and tender; A lover with voice low and tender. Moss and lichen the green branches deck; Weeds nod in its paths green and shady: Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams, The ghost of that beautiful lady, That happy and beautiful lady. OLD SUSAN When Susan's work was done, she would sit, With one fat guttering candle lit, And window opened wide to win The sweet night air to enter in. There, with a thumb to keep her place, She would read, with stern and wrinkled face, Her mild eyes
{'title': 'Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes. Volume I. by Walter De la Mare', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}