xt73bk16mh57 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt73bk16mh57/data/mets.xml Dargan, Olive Tilford, 1869-1968. 1914  books b92-211-30910086 English J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., : London : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Path flower and other verses  / Olive Tilford Dargan. text Path flower and other verses  / Olive Tilford Dargan. 1914 2002 true xt73bk16mh57 section xt73bk16mh57 










PATH FLOWER

 






















All rights reserved

 



PATH FLOWER
          AND
   OTHER VERSES

          BY



OLIVE T. DARGAN



          MCMXIV
 LONDON: J. M. DENT  SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

 This page in the original text is blank.


 










CONTENTS



PATTI FLOWER
THE PIPER
TO A HERMIT THRUS11
THANKSGIVING
'[XIEROAD  .
LA DAME REVOLUTION
TIRE REBEL
THESE LATTER DAYS
ABNEGATION
THE LITTLE TREE
Tl1E GAME
BALLAD
A DIRGE
HIs ARGUMENT
THE CONQUEROR
To 0OINA
" THERE'S ROSEMARY
AT TIIE GRAVE OF HEINE
TO A LOST COMRADE
FOR M. L. P.
                      v



           PAGE
             1
             6
             8
             14


             033

       .   24
          25
            2.)



            )28
            31
            37
            39
            40
            441
            42
            43
            4.45
            46

 



PATH FLOWER



To SLEEP
"LE PENSEUR1
VISION
SAFE
ON BOSwORTH FIELD
OLD FAIRINGDOWN
THE Kiss
YOUTH
To MIRIMOND
SOROLLA
IN TIlE BLUE RIDGE
YE WHO ARE TO SING
"AND THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST
MAGDALEN TO HER POET
FRIENDS
TRYST
IN TILE STUDIO
LOVERS' LEAP
HAVENED
MID-MAY .     .   .
rHE Loss
CALLED
SONG OF TO-mORROW .
LITTLE DAUGHTERS



      PAGE
      47
      48
      49
      50
      52
      53
      58
      60
      62
.   .  63
       66
       70
       73
    76
        85
      89
        90
        91
        94
        102
        104
        105.
        108
        110



vi

 














   The author thanks the editors of
".Scribner's Maga zine," " The CenturyIn,"
" The Atlantic Mon/h/y," and a M'IClure's "
for permission to reprint the greater part
of the verse included in this volume.

 This page in the original text is blank.


 







PATH FLOWER



A RED-CAP sang0 in Bishop's wood,
  A lark o'er Golder's lane,
As I the April pathway trod
  Bound west for Willesden.

At foot each tiny blade grew big
  And taller stood to hear,
And every leaf on every twig
  Was like a little ear.

As I too paused, and both ways tried
  To catch the rippling rain,-
So still, a hare kept at my side
  His tussock of disdain,-

Behind me close I heard a step,
  A soft pit-pat surprise,
And looking round my eyes fell deep
  Into sweet other eyes;
                                 A

 

PATH FLOWER



The eyes like wells, where sun lies too,
  So clear and trustful brown,
Without a bubble warning you
  That here's a place to drown.

"How many miles "  Her broken shoes
  Had told of more than one.
She answered like a dreaming Muse,
  " I came from Islington."

" So long a tramp" Two gentle nods,
  Then seemed to lift a wing,
And words fell soft as willow-buds,
  " I came to find the Spring."

A timid voice, yet not afraid
  In ways so sweet to roam,
As it with honey bees had played
  And could no more go home.

Her home! I saw the human lair,
  I heard the hucksters bawl,
I stifled with the thickened air
  Of bickering mart and stall.
                 2

 

PATH FLOWER



Without a tuppence for a ride,
  Her feet had set her free.
Her rags, that decency defied,
  Seemed new with liberty.

But she was frail. Who would might note
  The trail of hungering
That for an hour she had forgot
  In wonder of the Spring.

So shriven by her joy she glowed
  It seemed a sin to chat.
(A tea-shop snuggled off the road;
  Why did I think of that)

Oh, frail, so frail! I could have wept,-
  But she was passing on,
And I but muddled "You'll accept
  A penny for a bun "

Then up her little throat a spray
  Of rose climbed for it must;
A wilding lost till safe it lay
  Hid by her curls of rust;
                   3

 

PATH FLOWER



And I saw modesties at fence
  With pride that bore no name;
So old it was she knew not whence
  It sudden woke and came;

But that which shone of all most clear
  Was startled, sadder thought
That I should give her back the fear
  Of life she had forgot.

And I blushed for the world we'd made,
  Putting God's hand aside,
Till for the want of sun and shade
  His little children died;

And blushed that I who every year
  With Spring went up and down,
Must greet a soul that ached for her
  With " penny for a bun! "

Struck as a thief in holy place
  Whose sin upon him cries,
I watched the flowers leave her face,
  The song go from her eyes.
               4

 


PATH FLOWER



Then she, sweet heart, she saw my rout,
  And of her charity
A hand of grace put softly out
  And took the coin from me.


A red-cap sang in Bishop's wood,
  A lark o'er Golder's lane;
But I, alone, still glooming stood,
  And April plucked in vain;


Till living words rang in my ears
  And sudden music played:
Out of sch sacred thirst as hers
  The world shall be remade.


Afar she turned her head and smiled
  As might have smiled the Spring,
And humble as a wondering child
  I watched her vanishing.



5


 







THE PIPER



I MET a crone 'twixt wood and wood,
Who pointed down the piper's road
With shaken staff and fearsome glance,-
" Ware, ware the dance! "

But when the piper me did greet,
The wind, the wind was in my feet,
The rose and leaf on eager boughs
Unvestalled them of dew-writ vows,
And I as light as leaf and rose
Danced to the summer's close.

Now every tree is weary grown,
Of singing birds there is not one;
All, all the world droops into grey,-
o piper Love, Iiiust thou yet play
The wildest note of all he blew,
And fast my worn feet flew.
                6

 

THE PIPER



Old is the year, the leaf and rose
Are long, long gone;
So chill, so chill the gray wind blows
Through heart and bone;
No grasses warm the winter ways
That wound my feet;
But with unwearied fingers yet,
Bold, undelaved on stop and fret,
Unmnercifullv sweet.
The piper plays



7


 




TO A fIERMIT THRUSH



DWELLER among leaves, and shining twilight boughs
That fold cool arms about thine altar place,
What joyous race
Of gods dost serve with such unfaltering vows 

Weave me a time-fringed tale
Of slumbering, haunted trees,
And star-sweet fragrances
No day defiled;
Of bowering nights innumerable,
And nestling hours breath-nigh a dryad's heart
That sleeping yet was wild
With dream-beat that thou mad'st a part
Of thy dawn-fluting; ay, and keep'st it still,
Striving so late these godless woods to fill
With undefeated strain,
And in one hour build the old world again.
WVast thou found singing when Diana drew
Her skirts from the first night
Didst feel the sun-breath when the valleys grew
Warm with the love of light,
                       8

 


   TO A HERMIT THRUSH

Till blades of flower-lit green gave to the wind
The mystery that made sweet
The earth forever,-strange and undefined
As life, as God, as this thy song complete
That holds with me twin memories
Of time ere men,
And ere our ways
Lay sundered with the abyss of air between r

      List, I will lay
      The world, my song,
      Deep in the heart of day,
      Day that is long
      As the ages dream or the stars delay!
      Keep thou from me,
      Sigh-throated man,
      Forever to be
      Under the songless wanderer's ban.
      I am of time
      That counteth no dawn;
      Thy Ivons yet climb
      To skies I have won,
      Seeking for aye an unrisen sun!
                    9

 


TO A HERMIT THRUSH



Soft as a shadow slips
Before the moon, I creep beneath the trees,
Even to the boughs whose lowest circling tips
Whisper with the anemones
Thick-strewn as though a cloud had made
Its drifting way through spray and leafy braid
And sunk with unremerml)ering ease
To humbler heaven upon the mossy heaps.
And here a warmer flow
Urges thy melody, yet keeps
The cool of bowers; as might a rose blush through
Its unrelinquished dew;
Or bounteous heart that knows not woe,
Put on the robe of sighs, and fain
Would hold in love's surmise a neighbour's pain.


Ah, I have wronged thee, sprite!
So tender now thy song in flight,
So sweet its lingerings are,
It seems the liquid memory
Of time when thou didst try
Thy gleaning wing through human years,
                      I0

 


TO A HERNMIT THRUSH



And met, ay, knew the sigh
Of men who pray, the tears
That hide the woman's star,
The brave ascending fire
That is south's beacon and too soon his pyre,-
Yea, all our striving, bateless and unseeing,
That builds each day our Heaven new.
More deep in time's unnearing blue,
Farther and ever fleeing
The dream that ever must pursue.

        Heart-need is sorest
        When the song dies:
        Come to the forest,
        Brother of the sighs.
        Heart-need is song-need,
        Brother, give me thine!
        Song-meed is heart-meed,
        Brother, take mine!
        I go the still wa'y,
        Cover me with night;
        Thou goest the will wzy
        Into the light.
                  I I

 


TO A HERMIT THRUSH



          Thist and the burden
          Thou shalt ontirn;
          Bear then my gperdon,
          Song, to the sim !

0 little pagan with the heart of Christ,
I go bewildered from thine altar place,
These brooding boughs and grey-lit forest wings,
Nor know if thou deniest
My destiny and race,
Man's goalward falterings,
To sing the perfect joy that lay
Along the path we missed somewhere,
That led thee to thy home in air,
While we, soil-creepers, bruise our way
Toward heights and sunrise bounds
That wings may know nor feet may win
For all their scars, for all their wounds;
Or have I heard within thy strain
Not sorrow's self, but sorrowing
That thou did'st seek the way more free,
Nor took with us the trail of pain
                     1 2

 

TO A HERMIT THRUSH



That endeth not, e'er widening
To life that knows what Life may be;
And ere thou fall'st to silence long
Would golden parting fling:

Go, tnttal, through death unto thay star;
Ijourneyn ot so far;
AIy wibgs utustfitil e'eii with myn sotg.



13


 







TH A N K SG IV IN G



SUPREMEST Life and Lord of All,
  I bring my thanks to thee;
Not for the health that does not fail,
  And wings me over land and sea;
Not for this body's pearl and rose,
  And radiance made sure
By thine enduring life that flows
  In sky-print swift and pure;


Not for the thought whose glowing power
  Glides far, eternal, free,
And surging back in thy full hour
  Bears the wide world to me;
Not for the friends whose presence is
  The warm, sweet heart of things
Where leans the body for the kiss
  That gives the soul its wings;
                14

 

     THANKSGIVING

Not for the little hands that cling,
  The little feet that run,
And make the earth a fitter thing
  For thee to look upon;
Not for mine ease within my door,
  My roof when rains beat strong,
My bed, my fire, my food in store,
  My book when nights are long,;


But, Lord, I know where on lone sands
  A leper rots and cries;
Find thou my offering in his hands,
  My worship in his eyes.
As thou dost give to him, thy least,
  Thou givest unto me;
As he is fed I make my feast,
  And lift my thanks to thee.



15


 







THE ROAD



ON Gilead road the shadows creep;
  ('Tis noon, and I forget;)
By Gilead road the ferns are deep,
  And waves run emerald, wind-beset,
To some unsanded shore
  Of doe and dove and fay;
And I for love of that before,
  Forget the hindward way.


By Gilead road a river runs,
  (To what unshadowed sea)
Bough-hidden here,-there by the sun's
  Gold treachery unbared to me.
O Beauty in retreat,
  From beckoned eyes you steal,
But the pursuing heart, more fleet,
  Lifts your secretest veil.
                i6

 


THE ROAD



A thrush! What unbuilt temples rear
  Their domes where thrushes sing!
My heart glides in, a worshipper
  At shrines that ne'er knew offering,
Nor eye hath seen, and yet
  What soul hath not been there,
Deep in song's fane where we forget
  To pray, for we are prayer.

And now the shadows start and glide;
  I hear soft, woodland feet;
And who are they that deeper bide
  Where beechen twilights meet
What tranced beings smile
  On things I may not see
As with a dream they would beguile
  Their own eternity 

I too shall find my own as they;
  ('Tis eve, and I forget;)
Here in this world where mortals play
  As gods with no god's leave or let.
                17

 

THE ROAD



My hope in high purlieus
  Desire erst lockt and kept,
On wing unbarred shall seek and choose,-
  Ay, choose, when I have slept.

For happy roads may yet be long,
  And bliss must sometime bed.
Fern-deep I fall, lose sight and song,
  The slim palms close above my head,
And Life, the Shadow, weaves
  The charm on sleepers laid
Till Time's spent ghost comes not nor grieves
  An hourless Gilead.



Ay me, I dream my eyes are wet;
  I sigh, I turn, I weep.
Alack, that waking we forget
  But to remember when we sleep!
O vision of closed eyes,
  That burns the heart awake!
O the forgotten truth's reprise
  For the forsaken's sake!
                  i8

 

THE ROAD



Far land, blood-red, I feel again
  Thy hot, unsilenced breath;
Meet the unburied eyes of pain
  That, dying ever, litld no death;
See childhood's one gold hour
  Bartered for ctrust and bed,
And man's o'erdriven noon devour
  His evening peace and bread.

I hear men sob,-ay, nen,-and shout
  To souls on Gilead road:
"Tell us the way-we sent ye out-
  We bought ye free-we paid our blood!"
Gaunt arms make signal mad;
  0, feel the woe-waves break!
Does no one hear in Gilead
  Will one, not one turn back

Rolls higher from the land blood-red
  That sea-surge of despairX
A flame creeps over Gilead,
  Unseen, unfelt by any there.
                  I9

 


THE ROAD



They look not back, the while
  Doom shadows round them dance,
And smile meets slow, unstartled smile
  As in a sleep's mid-chance.

"We give our days, we give our blood,
  We send ye far to see!
WVe break beneath the double load
  That ye may walk unbowed and free!
'Tis ours, the healing shade;
  'Tis ours, the singing stream;
'Tis ours, the charm on sleepers laid;
  'Tis ours, the toil-won dream !


Dim grown is Gilead, ashen, lost
  To me who hear that cry.
"Our every star is hid with dust;
  The way, the way! Let us not die!"
Up from the trampled ferns,
  (O Beauty's praying hands!)
I stricken start, as one who turns
  From plague's unholy lands.
                20

 


THE ROAD



Pale is the dream we dream alone,
  An unresolving fire,
Till beacon hearts make it their own
  And men are lit with man's desire.
I mourn no Gilead fair,
  Back to my own I speed,
And all my tears are falling where
  They sell the sun for bread.


Mine too the blow, the unwept scar;
  Mine too the flames that sere;
And on my breast not one proud star
  That leaves a brother's heaven bare.
Life is the search of God
  For His own unity;
I walk stone-bare till all are shod,
  No gold may sandal me.

I come, 0 comrades, faster yet!
  For me no bough-hung shade
Till every burning foot be set
  In ferns of Gilead.
                21

 


THE ROAD



The old, old pain of kind,
  Once mine, is mine once more;
And I forget the way behind,
  So dear is that before.



22


 







LA DAME REVOLUTION



RED was the Might that sired thee,
  White was the Hope that bore thee,
Heaven and Earth desired thee,
  And Hell from thy lovers tore thee;
But barren to the ravisher,
Thou bearest Love thy child,
Immortal daughter, Peace; for her
  Waits Man, the Undefiled.



23


 







THE REBEL



A RIOT-M.AKER! Can the fruit
  Of frenzy be a gracious thing 
His soul has hands; above the bruit
  They lift a song-bird quivering.

World-wrecker! Shall he trampling go
  Till Beauty's drenched and lonely eyes
Mourn a deserted earth  But no!
  Men go not down till men arise.

The game is Life's. She plays to win;
  And whirls to dust her overlings;
Her abluent winds shall spare no sin,
  Though hidden in the breast of kings;

And Earth is smiling as she takes
  To her old lap their fallen bones,
For down the throbbing ways there wakes
  The laughter of her greater sons.
                  24


 







THESE LATTER DAYS



TAKE: down thy stars, 0 God! We look not up.
  In vain thou hangest there thy changeless sign.
We lift our eyes to power's glowing cup,
  Nor care if blood make strong that wizard wine,
So we but drink and feel the sorcery
  Of conquest in our veins, of wits grown keen
In strain and strife for flesh-sweet sovereignty,-
  The fatal thrill of kingship over men.
What though the soul be from the body shrunk,
  And we array the temple, but no god
What though, the cup of golden greed once drunk,
  Our dust be laid in a dishonoured sod,
While thy loud hosts proclaim the end of wars 
We read no sign. 0 God, take down thy stars!



25


 







ABN EGATION



CHRIST, dear Christ, were the wood-ways sweet
  By the long, white highway bare,
Where the hot road dust made grey Thy feet
  Ay,-but the woman's hair!


Brother, my Christ, when thou camest down
The cup of water to give,
Did a poet die on the mount's cool crown
Ay,-and for that dost thou live!



26


 







THE LITTLE TREE



IT pushed a guided way between
  The pebbles of her grave;
A poplar hastening to be green
  And silver signals wave.

And we who sought her with the moon,
  Were met by branches stirred,
And whiter grew as grew the croon
  That seemed her hidden word.

"0, she would speak! " my heart-beat said;
  My eyes were on the mound;
And lowlier hung my waiting head
  Above the prisoning ground.

Then smiled the lad and whispered me,-
  The lad who most did love;
"She stoops to us; the little tree
  Is wakened from above!"
                 27


 







THE GAME



'Tis played with eyes; one uttered word
  Would cast the game away.
As silent as a sailing bird,
  The shift and change of play.

So many eves to me are dear,
  So many do me bless;
The hazel, deep as deep wood-mere
  Where leaves are flutterless;

The brown that most bewildereth
  With dusking, golden play
Of shadows like betraying breath
  From some shy, hidden day;

The black whose torch is ever trimmed,
  Let stars be soon or late;
The blue, a morning never dimmed,
  Opposing Heaven to fate;
                  28

 


THE GAME



The grey as soft as farthest skies
  That hold horizon rain;
Or when, steel-darkling, stoic-wise,
  They bring the gods again;

And wavelit eves of nameless glow,
  Fed from far-risen streams;
But oh, the eyes, the eves that know
  The silent game of dreams!

Three times i've played. Once 'twas a child,
  Lap-held, not half a year
From Heaven, looked at me and smiled.
  And far I went with her.

Out past the twilight gates of birth,
  And past Tinme's blindfold day,
Beyond the star-ring of the earth,
  We found us room to play.

And once a woman, spent and old
  With unavailing tears,
Who from her hair's down-tangled fold
  Shook out the grey-blown years,
                  29

 

THE GAME



Sat by the trampled way alone,
  And lifted eyes-what themes!
I could not pass, I sat me down
  To play the game of dreams.

And oice     a poet's eyes they were,
  Though earth heard not his strain;
And since he went no eves can stir
  My own to play again.



30


 








BALLAD



WHEN' I with Death have gone on quest,
And grief is mellowed in your breast;
    When you do nothing fret
If jest come gently in with tea,
And Purr is stroked for want of me;
When thought robust bestirs your mind,
And with a candid start you find
    The world must move
    To living love
And you forthright on travel set;


I do not ask you strive to keep
Awake the woe that winks for sleep,
    Or swell the lessening tear;
I do not ask; dear to me still
May be the eyes regret would fill;
                  31

 


            BALLAD

And, sooth, in vain I'd Nature sue
To go a little out for you;
    But whether 'tis
    Or that or this
Is from the matter there and here.


Forget the kisses dying not
Till each a thousand more begot;
    Such easy progeny
You with small trouble still may have;
(Though women die, love has no grave;)
Forget the quaint, the nest-born ways,
And ponder things more to my praise,
    That I may long
    Be worth a song
Though deep in tongueless clay I be.

Admit my eye, than yours less keen,
Still knew a bead of Hippocrene
    From baser bubbles bright;
My ear could catch, or short or long,
The echo of true-hammered song;
                  32

 

BALLAD



And many a book we journeyed through;
Some turned us home again, 'tis true,
    (Not all who pen
    Are more than men,)
And some, like stars, outwore the night.


Say I could break a lance with Fate,
Took half, at least, my troubles straight,
    (Let women have their boast;)
Homed well with chance, and passing where
The gods kept house would take a chair,
Perchance at ease, with naught ado,
With Jove would toss a quip or two;
    The nectar stale,
    A mug of ale
On goodly earth would serve a toast.

And if I left thee by a stile
Where thou didst choose to dream, the while
    I sought a farther mead,
Or clomb a ridge for flowers that wore
Of earth the less, of stars the more,



33



C

 

BALLAD



I hastened back, confess of me,
To lay my treasure on thy knee;
    Nor didst thou hear
    Of stone or brere,
Or how my hidden feet did bleed.

And in the piping season when
The whole round world takes heart again
    To rise and dance with Spring;
When robin drives the snow-wind home,
And sweetened is the warnmed loam,
When deeper root the violets,
And every bud its fear forgets
    With upward glance
    For lovers' chance
In Venus' dear and fateful ring;

Let not a thought of my cold bed
Bechill thy warin heart beating red,
    And thy new ardours dim;
But if, good hap, you rove where I
Beneath the twinkling moss then lie,
                  34

 


BALLAD



Be glad to see me decked so gay,
(Spring's the best handmaid without pay,)
    I like things new,
    In season too,
And fain must smile to be so trim.

Then hie thee to some bonny brake
Another mate to woo and take,
    And as thy soul to love.
Rise with the dew, stay not the noon,
What's good cannot be found too soon,
The wind will not be always south,
Nor like a rose is every mouth,
    Time's quick to press,
    Do thou no less,
And may the night thy wisdom prove.

And as all love doth live again
In great or small that loved hath been,
    Keep this sole troth with me,-
Forget my name, my form, my face,
But meet me still in every place,
                  35

 


BALLAD



Since we are what we love, and I
Loved everything beneath the sky.
    So may I long
    Be worth a song,
Though I who sang forgotten be.



36


 







A DIRGE



MORTAL child, lay thee where
  Earth is gift and giver;
Midnight owl, witch, or bear
  Shall disturb thee never!

Softly, softly take thy place,
Turn from man thy waning face;
Fear not thou must lie alone,
Sleep-mates thou shalt have anon.

(Clock of Time none commands,
  Driveth not the winter floods,
Where the silent, tireless sands
  Run the ages of the gods.)

Thine is not a jealous bed;
Pillow here hath every head;
All that are and all to be
Shall ask a little room of thee.
              37

 

A DIRGE



(Feet of flame, haste nor creep
  Where the stars are of thy pace;
Heart of fire, in shadows sleep,
  With the sun in thy embrace.)

Babe of Time, old in care,
  Sweet is Earth, the giver;
Owlet, witch, or midnight bear
  Shall disturb thee never.



38


 






HIS ARGUMENT



ONE time I wooed a maid (dear is she yet!)
  All in the revel eye of young Love's moon.
Content she made me,-ah, my dimpling mate,
  My Springtime girl, who walked with flower-
    shoon !
But near me, nearer, steals a deep-eyed maid
  With creeping glance that sees and will not see,
And blush that would those yea-sweet eyes up-
    braid,-
  0, might I woo her nor inconstant be!
But is not Autumn dreamtime of the Spring 
  (Yon scarlet fruit-bell is a flower asleep;)
  And I am not forsworn if yet I keep
Dream-faith with Spring in Autumn's deeper kiss.
  Then so, brown maiden, take this true-love ring,
And lay thy long, soft locks where my heart is.



39


 







THE CONQUEROR



o SPRING, that flutter'st the slow Winter by,
  To drop thy buds before his frosty feet,
Dost thou not grieve to see thy darlings lie
  In trodden death, and weep their beauty sweet
Yet must thou cast thy tender offering,
  And make thy way above thy mournd dead,
Or frowning Winter would be always king,
  And thou wouldst never walk with crowned head.
So gentle Love must make his venturous way
  Among the shaken buds of his own pain;
And many a hope-blown garland meekly lay
  Before the chilly season of disdain;
But as no beauty may the Spring outglow,
So he, when throned, no greater lord doth know.



40


 







TO MOINA



THERE were no heaven but for lovers' eves;
  Save in their depths do all Elysiums fade;
And gods were dead but for the life that lies
  In kisses sweet on sweeter altars laid.
There were no heroes did not lovers ride,
  And pyramid high deeds upon new time;
Nor tale for feast, or field, or chimney-side,
  And harps were dumb and song had ne'er a rhyme.
Then live, proud heart, in happy fealty,
  Nor sigh thee more thy dear bonds to remove;
Thou art not thrall to liege of mean degree,
  For all are kings who bear the lance of love;
No wight so poor but may his tatters lose,
And find his purple if his lady choose.



4I


 







"THERE'S ROSEMARY'"



o LOVE that is not love, but dear, so dear!
  That is not love because it goes so soon,
  Like flower born and dead within one moon,
And yet is love for that it comes full near
The guarded fane where love alone may peer,
  Ere like young Spring by Summer soon outshone,
  It trembles into death, but comes anon,
As thoughts of Spring will come though Summer's
    here.


0 star full sweet, though one arose more fair,
  Within my heart I'll keep a heaven for thee
    Where thou mayst freely come and freely go,
Touching with thy pale gold the twilight air
  Where dream-closed buds could never flower show,
    Yet fragrant keep the shadowy way for me.



42


 







AT THE GRAVE OF HEINE



SOUTH-HEART of song
  In winter drest,
Death mends thy wrong;
  That is life's best.

Bird, who didst sing
From a bare bough,
Call, and what Spring
  WVill answer now!

And haste with her
  Bud-legacy,-
0, not to share,
  To take of thee!

Thy night, slow, dark,
  Yet song-lit shone,
Till who did hark
  Missed not the moon;
         43

 

AT THE GRAVE OF HEINE



     When Morning found
       Thy cold, pierced breast,
     'Twas she who moaned,
       To thy thorn pressed.


Here lies the thorn-wound of the dawn
Through whose high morn the bird sings on.



44


 







TO A LOST COMRADE



WE found the spring at eager noon,
  And from one cup we drank;
Then on until the forest croon
  In twilight tangle sank;

The night was ours, the stars, the dawn;
  The manna crust, bird-shared;
And never failed our magic shoon,
  Whatever way we fared.

If caged at last, ceased not the flow
  Of sky-gleam through the bars;
And where were wounds I only know
  Tear-kisses hid the scars.

And when, as round the world death-free
  We wind-embodied roam,
I hear the gale that once was thee
  Cry " Hollo ! " I will come.
               45


 







FOR M. L.P.



ROSE Love lay dreaming where I passed,
  Like flower blown from careless stern;
So still I dared to touch at last
  Her white robe's hem.


Rose Love looked up and caught my hand,
  Though in her eyes the sea-birds were;
When o'er my brow there blew a strand
  Of cold, grey hair.


Rose Love stood up unriddling this,
  Till shadows in my eyes grew old;
Then warmed the lock with sudden kiss;
  Now flames it gold.



46


 






TO SLEEP



o SILENT lover of a world day-worn,
  Taking the weary light to thy dusk arms,
Stealing where pale forms lie, sun-hurt and torn,
  Waiting the balm of thy oblivious charms
Make me thy captive ere I guess pursuit,
  And cast me deep within some dreamless close,
Where hopes stir not, and white, wronged lips are
    mute,
  And Pain's hot wings fold down o'er hushed woes.
And if ere morn thou choosest me to free,
  Let it not be, dear jailer, through the door
That timeward opes, but to eternity
  Set thou the soul that needs thee nevermore;
So I from sleep to death may softly wend
As one would pass from gentle friend to friend.



47


 







"LE PENSEUR"



WXARMI in this marble, that is stone no more,
  Life at wound-pause lifts ear to woundless mind;
  Backward the ages their slow clew unwind,
And step by step, and star by star, lead o'er
The trail again, where eyeless passion tore
  Its red way to a soul. Mist-bound and blind
  No more, the thinker waits, and God grown kind
Flashes a foot-print where He goes before.

Not to be followed! Falls the cloud again;
  Folds the stern form around the striving doubt,
    And curve betrays to curve the silent birth
That shall be voice to later times and men;
  While lone in unlit dark, within, without,
    He sits immortal on a godless earth.



48


 









V I S I0 N



LOOK in, 0 Mystic, on thy lease,
  Thou tenant soul in God's demesne;
Forego the show of eyes that fail,
And walk the world that cannot pale,
  Thine by a sealed and termless lien
Within His met eternities.


Yet look thou out from thy still hour
  With eyes that know and bear His fire;
Till kindling on thy wonder's verge
The transient days immortal merge
  In Him fulfilled as worlds expire
In nestled love, a song, a flower.



49



D


 








SAFE



MY dream-fruit tree a palace bore
  In stone's reality,
And friends and treasure, art and lore,
  Carrie in to dwell with me.

But palaces for gods are made;
  I shrank to man, or less;
Gold-barriered, yet chill, afraid,
  My soul shook shelterless.

I found a cottage in a wood,
  Warmed by a hearth and maid,
And fed and slept, and said 'twas good,-
  Ah, love-nest in the shade!



The walls grew close, the roof pressed low,
  Soft arms my jailers were;
My naked soul arose to go,
  And shivered bright and bare.
                50

 


SAFE



No more I sought for covert kind;
  The blast blew on my head;
And lo, with tempest and with wind
  I felt me garmented.

Here on the hills the writhing storm
  Cloaks well and shelters me;
I wrap me round and I ani warni,
  Warm for eternity.



5'


 









O(N BOSWVORTH FIELD



HERE, Richard, didst thou fall, caparisoned
    With kingdoms of thy lust,
And here wouldst lie, by Fame's bent gleaners
      shunned,
    But came unto thy dust
    A swaggerer, perdy'
Who cried " A horse, a horse! " and straight
Thou wert abroad again on kingly feet
    To tread eternity.



52


 








()L 1) FA IRI NG DO XVN



SOFT as a treader on mosses
I go through the village that sleeps;
The village too early abed,
For the night still shuffles, a gipsy,
In the woods of the east,
And the west remembers the sun.



Not all are asleep; there are faces
That lean from the walls of the gardens;
Look sharply, or you will not see them,
Or think them another stone in the wall.
I spoke to a stone, and it answered
Like an aged rock that crumbles;
Each falling piece was a word.
"Five have I buried," it said,
"And seven are over the sea."
                   53

 

OLD FAIRINGDOWN



Here is a hut that I pass,
So lowly it has no brow,
And dwarfs sit within at a table.
A boy waits apart by the hearth;
On his face the patience of firelight,
But his eves seek the door and a far world.
It is not the call to the table he waits,
But the call of the sea-rimmed forests,
And cities that stir in a dream.
I haste by the low-browed door,
Lest my arms go in and betray mne,
A mother jealously passing.
He will go, the pale dwarf, and walk tall among
    giants;
The child with his eyes on the far land,
And fame like a young, curled leaf in his heart.

The stream that darts from the hanging hill
Like a silver wing that must sing as it flies,
Is folded and still on the breast
Of the village that sleeps.
Each mute, old house is more old than the other,
And each wears its vines like ragged hair
                       54

 

OLD FAIRINGDOWN



Round the half-blind windows.
If a child should laugh, if a girl should sing,
Would the houses rub the vines from their eyes,
And listen and live
A voice comes now from a cottage,
A voice that is young and must sing,
A honeyed stab on the air,
And the houses do not wake.

I look through the leaf-blowzed window,
And start as a gazer who, passing a death-vault,
Sees life sitting hopeful within.
Sh