THE GLOW-WORM

The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies, And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs, Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers, Shining steadily with a green light, the glow-worm lies.

We regard it; and this hill and all the other hills That fall in folds to the river, very smooth and steep, And the hangers and brakes that the darkness thickly fills Fade like phantoms round the light, and night is deep, so deep,—

That all the world is emptiness about the still flame, And we are small shadows standing lost in the huge night. We gather up the glow-worm, stooping with dazzled sight, And carry it to the little enclosed garden whence we came,

And place it on the short grass. Then the shadowy flowers fade, The walls waver and melt and the houses disappear And the solid town trembles into insubstantial shade Round the light of the burning glow-worm, steady and clear.



THE CATACLYSM

When a great wave disturbs the ocean cold And throws the bottom waters to the sky, Strange apparitions on the surface lie, Great battered vessels, stripped of gloss and gold, And, writhing in their pain, sea-monsters old, Who stain the waters with a bloody dye, With unaccustomed mouths bellow and cry And vex the waves with struggling fin and fold.

And with these too come little trivial things Tossed from the deeps by the same casual hand; A faint sea flower, dragged from the lowest sand, That will not undulate its luminous wings In the slow tides again, lies dead and swings Along the muddy ripples to the land.



A HOLLOW ELM

What hast thou not withstood, Tempest-despising tree, Whose bloat and riven wood Gapes now so hollowly, What rains have beaten thee through many years, What snows from off thy branches dripped like tears?

Calmly thou standest now Upon thy sunny mound; The first spring breezes flow Past with sweet dizzy sound; Yet on thy pollard top the branches few Stand stiffly out, disdain to murmur too.

The children at thy foot Open new-lighted eyes, Where, on gnarled bark and root, The soft warm sunshine lies— Dost thou, upon thine ancient sides, resent The touch of youth, quick and impermanent?

These at the beck of spring Live in the moment still: Thy boughs unquivering, Remembering winter's chill, And many other winters past and gone, Are mocked, not cheated, by the transient sun.

Hast thou so much withstood, Tempest-despising tree, That now thy hollow wood Stiffens disdainfully Against the soft spring airs and soft spring rain, Knowing too well that winter comes again?



FTE GALANTE; THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

Aristono, the fading shepherdess, Gathers the young girls round her in a ring, Teaching them wisdom of love, What to say, how to dress, How frown, how smile, How suitors to their dancing feet to bring, How in mere walking to beguile, What words cunningly said in what a way Will draw man's busy fancy astray, All the alphabet, grammar and syntax of love.

The garden smells are sweet, Daisies spring in the turf under the high-heeled feet, Dense, dark banks of laurel grow Behind the wavering row Of golden, flaxen, black, brown, auburn heads, Behind the light and shimmering dresses Of these unreal, modern shepherdesses; And gaudy flowers in formal patterned beds Vary the dim long vistas of the park, Far as the eye can see, Till at the forest's edge the ground grows dark And the flowers vanish in the obscurity.

The young girls gather round her, Remembering eagerly how their fathers found her Fresh as a spring-like wind in February, Subtler in her moving heart than sun-motes that vary At every waft of an opening and shutting door; They gather chattering near, Hush, break out in laughter, whisper aside, Grow silent more and more, Though she will never chide. Now through the silence sounds her voice still clear, And all give ear. Like a silver thread through the golden afternoon, Equably the voice discloses All that age-old wisdom; like an endless tune Aristono's voice wavers among the roses, Level and unimpassioned, Telling them how of nothing love is fashioned, How it is but a movement of the mind, Bidding Celia mark That light skirts fluttering in the wind, Or white flowers stuck in dark Glistening hair, have fired the dull beholder, Or telling Anais That faint indifference ere now hath bred a kiss Denied to flaunted snowy breast or shoulder.

The girls attend, Each thinking on her friend, Whether he be real or imaginary, Whether he be loving or cold; For each ere she grows old Means to pursue her joy, and the whole unwary Troop of their wishes has this wild quarry in cry, That draws them ineluctably, More and more as the summer slippeth by. And Celia leans aside To contemplate her black-silked ankle on the grass; In remote dreaming pride, Rosalind recalls the image in her glass; Phillis through all her body feels How divine energy steals, Quiescent power and resting speed, Stretches her arms out, feels the warm blood run Ready for pursuit, for strife and deed, And turns her glowing face up to the sun. Phillida smiles, And lazily trusts her lazy wit, A slow arrow that hath often hit; Chloe, bemused by many subtle wiles, Grows not more dangerous for all of it, But opens her red lips, yawning drowsily, And shows her small white teeth, Dimpling the round chin beneath, And stretches, moving her young body deliciously.

And still the lesson goes on, For this is an old story that is never done; And now the precept is of ribbon and shoe, What with linens and silks love finds to do, And how man's heart is tangled in a string Or taken in gauze like a weak and helpless thing. Chloe falls asleep; and the long summer day Drifts slowly past the girls and the warm roses, Giving in dreams its hours away. Now Stella throws her head back, and Phillis disposes Her strong brown hands quietly in her lap, And Rose's slender feet grow restless and tap The turf to an imaginary tune. Now all this grace of youthful bodies and faces Is wrought to a glow by the golden weather of June; Now, Love, completing grace of all the graces, Strong in these hearts thy pure streams rise, Transmuting what they learn by heavenly alchemies. Swift from the listeners the spell vanishes, And through the tinkling, empty words, True thoughts of true love press, Flying and wheeling nearer; As through a sunny sky a flock of birds Against the throbbing blue grows clearer and clearer, So closer come these thoughts and dearer.

Helen rises with a laugh; Chloe wakes; All the enchantment scatters off like chaff; The cord is loosened and the spell breaks. Rosalind Resolves that to-night she will be kind to her lover, Unreflecting, warm and kind. Celia tells the lessons over, Counting on her fingers—one and two ... Ribbon and shoe, Skirts, flowers, song, dancing, laughter, eyes ... Through the whole catalogue of formal gallantry And studious coquetries, Counting to herself maliciously.

But the old, the fading shepherdess, Aristono, Rises stiffly and walks alone Down the broad path where densely the laurels grow, And over a little lawn, not closely mown, Where wave the flowering grass and the rich meadowsweet. She seems to walk painfully now and slow, And drags a little on her high-heeled feet. She stops at last below An old and twisted plum-tree, whose last petal is gone, Leans on the comfortable, rugged bole, And stares through the green leaves at the drooping sun. The tree and the warm light comfort her ageing soul.

On the other lawn behind her, out of sight, The girls at play Drive out melancholy by lively delight, And the wind carries their songs and laughter away. Some begin dancing and seriously tread A modern measure up and down the grass, Turn, slide with bending knees, and pass With dipping hand and poising head, Float through the sun in pairs, like newly shed And golden leaves astray Upon the warm wind of an autumn day, When the Indian summer rules the air. Others, having found, Lying idly on the sun-hot ground, Shuttlecocks and battledores, Play with the buoyant feathers and stare Dazzled at the plaything as it soars, Vague against the shining sky, Where light yet throbs and confuses the eye, Then see it again, white and clear, As slowly, poisdly it falls by The dark green foliage and floats near. But Celia, apart, is pensive and must sigh, And Anais but faintly pursues the game. An encroaching, inner flame Burns in their hearts with the acrid smoke of unrest; But gaiety runs like quicksilver in Rose's breast, And Phillis, rising, Walks by herself with high and springy tread, All her young blood racing from heels to head, Breeding new desires and a new surprising Strength and determination, Whereof are bred Confidence and joy and exultation.

The long day closes; Rosalind's hour draws near, and Chloe's and Rose's, The hour that Celia has prayed, The hour for which Anais and Stella have stayed, When Helen shall forget her wit, And Phillida by a sure arrow at length be hit, And Phillis, the fleet runner, be at length overtaken; When this bough of young blossoms By the rough, eager gatherers shall be shaken. Their eyes grow dim, Their hearts flutter like taken birds in their bosoms, As the light dies out of heaven, And a faint, delicious tremor runs through every limb, And faster the volatile blood through their veins is driven.

The long day closes; The last light fades in the amber sky; Warm through the warm dusk glow the roses, And a heavier shade drops slowly from the trees, While through the garden as all colours die The scents come livelier on the quickening breeze. The world grows larger, vaguer, dimmer, Over the dark laurels a few faint stars glimmer; The moon, that was a pallid ghost, Hung low on the horizon, faint and lost, Comes up, a full and splendid golden round By black and sharp-cut foliage overcrossed. The girls laugh and whisper now with hardly a sound Till all sound vanishes, dispersed in the night, Like a wisp of cloud that fades in the moon's light, And the garden grows silent and the shadows grow Deeper and blacker below The mysteriously moving and murmuring trees, That stand out darkly against the star-luminous sky; Huge stand the trees, Shadowy, whispering immensities, That rain down quietude and darkness on heart and eye. None move, none speak, none sigh But from the laurels comes a leaping voice Crying in tones that seem not man's nor boy's, But only joy's, And hard behind a loud tumultuous crying, A tangled skein of noise, And the girls see their lovers come, each vying Against the next in glad and confident poise, Or softly moving To the side of the chosen with gentle words and loving Gifts for her pleasure of sweetmeats and jewelled toys.

Dear Love, whose strength no pedantry can stir, Whether in thine iron enemies, Or in thine own strayed follower Bemused with subtleties and sophistries, Now dost thou rule the garden, now The gatherers' hands have grasped the scented bough.

Slow the sweet hours resolve, and one by one are sped. The garden lieth empty. Overhead A nightjar rustles by, wing touching wing, And passes, uttering His hoarse and whirring note. The daylight birds long since are fled, Nor has the moon yet touched the brown bird's throat.

All's quiet, all is silent, all around The day's heat rises gently from the ground, And still the broad moon travels up the sky, Now glancing through the trees and now so high That all the garden through her rays are shed, And from the laurels one can just descry Where in the distance looms enormously The old house, with all its windows black and dead.



SONG

As I lay in the early sun, Stretched in the grass, I thought upon My true love, my dear love, Who has my heart for ever, Who is my happiness when we meet, My sorrow when we sever. She is all fire when I do burn, Gentle when I moody turn, Brave when I am sad and heavy And all laughter when I am merry. And so I lay and dreamed and dreamed, And so the day wheeled on, While all the birds with thoughts like mine Were singing to the sun.



* * * * *



FREDEGOND SHOVE



A DREAM IN EARLY SPRING

Now when I sleep the thrush breaks through my dreams With sharp reminders of the coming day: After his call, one minute I remain Unwaked, and on the darkness which is Me There springs the image of a daffodil, Growing upon a grassy bank alone, And seeming with great joy his bell to fill With drops of golden dew, which on the lawn He shakes again, where they lie bright and chill.

His head is drooped; the shrouded winds that sing Bend him which way they will: never on earth Was there before so beautiful a ghost. Alas! he had a less than flower-birth, And like a ghost indeed must shortly glide From all but the sad cells of memory, Where he will linger, an imprisoned beam, Or fallen shadow of the golden world, Long after this and many another dream.



THE WORLD

I wish this world and its green hills were mine, But it is not; the wandering shepherd star Is not more distant, gazing from afar On the unreapd pastures of the sea, Than I am from the world, the world from me. At night the stars on milky way that shine Seem things one might possess, but this round green Is for the cows that rest, these and the sheep: To them the slopes and pastures offer sleep; My sleep I draw from the far fields of blue, Whence cold winds come and go among the few Bright stars we see and many more unseen.

Birds sing on earth all day among the flowers, Taking no thought of any other thing But their own hearts, for out of them they sing: Their songs are kindred to the blossom heads, Faint as the petals which the blackthorn sheds, And like the earth—not alien songs as ours. To them this greenness and this island peace Are life and death and happiness in one; Nor are they separate from the white sun, Or those warm winds which nightly wash the deep Or starlight in the valleys, or new sleep; And from these things they ask for no release.

But we can never call this world our own, Because we long for it, and yet we know That should the great winds call us, we should go; Should they come calling out across the cold, We should rise up and leave the sheltered fold And follow the great road to the unknown, We should pass by the barns and haystacks brown, Should leave the wild pool and the nightingale; Across the ocean we should set a sail And, coming to the world's pale brim, should fly Out to the very middle of the sky, On past the moon; nor should we once look down.



THE NEW GHOST

'And he, casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus.'

And he cast it down, down, on the green grass, Over the young crocuses, where the dew was— He cast the garment of his flesh that was full of death, And like a sword his spirit showed out of the cold sheath.

He went a pace or two, he went to meet his Lord, And, as I said, his spirit looked like a clean sword, And seeing him the naked trees began shivering, And all the birds cried out aloud as it were late spring.

And the Lord came on, He came down, and saw That a soul was waiting there for Him, one without flaw, And they embraced in the churchyard where the robins play, And the daffodils hang down their heads, as they burn away.

The Lord held his head fast, and you could see That he kissed the unsheathed ghost that was gone free— As a hot sun, on a March day, kisses the cold ground; And the spirit answered, for he knew well that his peace was found.

The spirit trembled, and sprang up at the Lord's word— As on a wild, April day, springs a small bird— So the ghost's feet lifting him up, he kissed the Lord's cheek, And for the greatness of their love neither of them could speak.

But the Lord went then, to show him the way, Over the young crocuses, under the green may That was not quite in flower yet—to a far-distant land; And the ghost followed, like a naked cloud holding the sun's hand.



A MAN DREAMS THAT HE IS THE CREATOR

I sat in heaven like the sun Above a storm when winter was: I took the snowflakes one by one And turned their fragile shapes to glass: I washed the rivers blue with rain And made the meadows green again.

I took the birds and touched their springs, Until they sang unearthly joys: They flew about on golden wings And glittered like an angel's toys: I filled the fields with flowers' eyes, As white as stars in Paradise.

And then I looked on man and knew Him still intent on death—still proud; Whereat into a rage I flew And turned my body to a cloud: In the dark shower of my soul The star of earth was swallowed whole.



* * * * *



J. C. SQUIRE



RIVERS

Rivers I have seen which were beautiful, Slow rivers winding in the flat fens, With bands of reeds like thronged green swords Guarding the mirrored sky; And streams down-tumbling from the chalk hills To valleys of meadows and watercress-beds, And bridges whereunder, dark weed-coloured shadows, Trout flit or lie,

I know those rivers that peacefully glide Past old towers and shaven gardens, Where mottled walls rise from the water And mills all streaked with flour; And rivers with wharves and rusty shipping, That flow with a stately tidal motion Towards their destined estuaries Full of the pride of power;

Noble great rivers, Thames and Severn, Tweed with his gateway of many grey arches, Clyde, dying at sunset westward In a sea as red as blood; Rhine and his hills in close procession, Placid Elbe, Seine slaty and swirling, And Isar, son of the Alpine snows, A furious turquoise flood.

All these I have known, and with slow eyes I have walked on their shores and watched them, And softened to their beauty and loved them Wherever my feet have been;

And a hundred others also Whose names long since grew into me, That, dreaming in light or darkness, I have seen, though I have not seen.

Those rivers of thought: cold Ebro, And blue racing Guadiana, Passing white houses, high-balconied That ache in a sun-baked land, Congo, and Nile and Colorado, Niger, Indus, Zambesi, And the Yellow River, and the Oxus, And the river that dies in sand.

What splendours are theirs, what continents, What tribes of men, what basking plains, Forests and lion-hided deserts, Marshes, ravines and falls: All hues and shapes and tempers Wandering they take as they wander From those far springs that endlessly The far sea calls.

O in reverie I know the Volga That turns his back upon Europe, And the two great cities on his banks, Novgorod and Astrakhan; Where the world is a few soft colours, And under the dove-like evening The boatmen chant ancient songs, The tenderest known to man.

And the holy river Ganges, His fretted cities veiled in moonlight, Arches and buttresses silver-shadowy In the high moon, And palms grouped in the moonlight And fanes girdled with cypresses, Their domes of marble softly shining To the high silver moon.

And that aged Brahmapootra Who beyond the white Himalayas Passes many a lamassery On rocks forlorn and frore, A block of gaunt grey stone walls With rows of little barred windows, Where shrivelled young monks in yellow silk Are hidden for evermore....

But O that great river, the Amazon, I have sailed up its gulf with eyelids closed, And the yellow waters tumbled round, And all was rimmed with sky, Till the banks drew in, and the trees' heads, And the lines of green grew higher And I breathed deep, and there above me The forest wall stood high.

Those forest walls of the Amazon Are level under the blazing blue And yield no sound but the whistles and shrieks Of the swarming bright macaws; And under their lowest drooping boughs Mud-banks torpidly bubble, And the water drifts, and logs in the water Drift and twist and pause.

And everywhere, tacitly joining, Float noiseless tributaries, Tall avenues paved with water: And as I silent fly The vegetation like a painted scene, Spars and spikes and monstrous fans And ferns from hairy sheaths up-springing, Evenly passes by.

And stealthier stagnant channels Under low niches of drooping leaves Coil into deep recesses: And there have I entered, there To heavy, hot, dense, dim places Where creepers climb and sweat and climb, And the drip and splash of oozing water Loads the stifling air.

Rotting scrofulous steaming trunks, Great horned emerald beetles crawling, Ants and huge slow butterflies That had strayed and lost the sun; Ah, sick I have swooned as the air thickened To a pallid brown ecliptic glow, And on the forest, fallen with languor, Thunder has begun.

Thunder in the dun dusk, thunder Rolling and battering and cracking, The caverns shudder with a terrible glare Again and again and again, Till the land bows in the darkness, Utterly lost and defenceless, Smitten and blinded and overwhelmed By the crashing rods of rain.

And then in the forests of the Amazon, When the rain has ended, and silence come, What dark luxuriance unfolds From behind the night's drawn bars: The wreathing odours of a thousand trees And the flowers' faint gleaming presences, And over the clearings and the still waters Soft indigo and hanging stars.

* * * * *

O many and many are rivers, And beautiful are all rivers, And lovely is water everywhere That leaps or glides or stays; Yet by starlight, moonlight, or sunlight, Long, long though they look, these wandering eyes, Even on the fairest waters of dream, Never untroubled gaze.

For whatever stream I stand by, And whatever river I dream of, There is something still in the back of my mind From very far away; There is something I saw and see not, A country full of rivers That stirs in my heart and speaks to me More sure, more dear than they.

And always I ask and wonder (Though often I do not know it): Why does this water not smell like water? Where is the moss that grew Wet and dry on the slabs of granite And the round stones in clear brown water? —And a pale film rises before them Of the rivers that first I knew.

Though famous are the rivers of the great world, Though my heart from those alien waters drinks Delight however pure from their loveliness, And awe however deep, Would I wish for a moment the miracle, That those waters should come to Chagford, Or gather and swell in Tavy Cleave Where the stones cling to the steep?

No, even were they Ganges and Amazon In all their great might and majesty, League upon league of wonders, I would lose them all, and more, For a light chiming of small bells, A twisting flash in the granite, The tiny thread of a pixie waterfall That lives by Vixen Tor.

Those rivers in that lost country, They were brown as a clear brown bead is Or red with the earth that rain washed down, Or white with china-clay; And some tossed foaming over boulders, And some curved mild and tranquil, In wooded vales securely set Under the fond warm day.

Okement and Erme and Avon, Exe and his ruffled shallows, I could cry as I think of those rivers That knew my morning dreams; The weir by Tavistock at evening When the circling woods were purple, And the Lowman in spring with the lent-lilies, And the little moorland streams.

For many a hillside streamlet There falls with a broken tinkle, Falling and dying, falling and dying, In little cascades and pools, Where the world is furze and heather And flashing plovers and fixed larks, And an empty sky, whitish blue, That small world rules.

There, there, where the high waste bog-lands And the drooping slopes and the spreading valleys, The orchards and the cattle-sprinkled pastures Those travelling musics fill, There is my lost Abana, And there is my nameless Pharphar That mixed with my heart when I was a boy, And time stood still.

And I say I will go there and die there: But I do not go there, and sometimes I think that the train could not carry me there, And it's possible, maybe, That it's farther than Asia or Africa, Or any voyager's harbour, Farther, farther, beyond recall.... O even in memory!



EPITAPH IN OLD MODE

The leaves fall gently on the grass, And all the willow trees and poplar trees and elder trees That bend above her where she sleeps, O all the willow trees, the willow trees Breathe sighs above her tomb.

O pause and pity as you pass. She loved so tenderly, so quietly, so hopelessly; And sometimes comes one here and weeps— She loved so tenderly, so tenderly, And never told them whom.



SONNET

There was an Indian, who had known no change, Who strayed content along a sunlit beach Gathering shells. He heard a sudden strange Commingled noise: looked up; and gasped for speech. For in the bay, where nothing was before, Moved on the sea, by magic, huge canoes, With bellying cloths on poles, and not one oar, And fluttering coloured signs and clambering crews.

And he, in fear, this naked man alone, His fallen hands forgetting all their shells, His lips gone pale, knelt low behind a stone, And stared, and saw, and did not understand, Columbus's doom-burdened caravels Slant to the shore, and all their seamen land.



THE BIRDS

Within mankind's duration, so they say, Khephren and Ninus lived but yesterday. Asia had no name till man was old And long had learned the use of iron and gold; And ons had passed, when the first corn was planted, Since first the use of syllables was granted.

Men were on earth while climates slowly swung, Fanning wide zones to heat and cold, and long Subsidence turned great continents to sea, And seas dried up, dried up interminably, Age after age; enormous seas were dried Amid wastes of land. And the last monsters died.

Earth wore another face. O since that prime Man with how many works has sprinkled time! Hammering, hewing, digging tunnels, roads; Building ships, temples, multiform abodes. How, for his body's appetites, his toils Have conquered all earth's products, all her soils; And in what thousand thousand shapes of art He has tried to find a language for his heart!

Never at rest, never content or tired: Insatiate wanderer, marvellously fired, Most grandly piling and piling into the air Stones that will topple or arch he knows not where.

And yet did I, this spring, think it more strange, More grand, more full of awe, than all that change, And lovely and sweet and touching unto tears, That through man's chronicled and unchronicled years, And even into that unguessable beyond The water-hen has nested by a pond, Weaving dry flags, into a beaten floor, The one sure product of her only lore. Low on a ledge above the shadowed water Then, when she heard no men, as nature taught her, Plashing around with busy scarlet bill She built that nest, her nest, and builds it still.

O let your strong imagination turn The great wheel backward, until Troy unburn, And then unbuild, and seven Troys below Rise out of death, and dwindle, and outflow, Till all have passed, and none has yet been there: Back, ever back. Our birds still crossed the air; Beyond our myriad changing generations Still built, unchanged, their known inhabitations. A million years before Atlantis was Our lark sprang from some hollow in the grass, Some old soft hoof-print in a tussock's shade; And the wood-pigeon's smooth snow-white eggs were laid, High, amid green pines' sunset-coloured shafts, And rooks their villages of twiggy rafts Set on the tops of elms, where elms grew then, And still the thumbling tit and perky wren Popped through the tiny doors of cosy balls And the blackbird lined with moss his high-built walls; A round mud cottage held the thrush's young, And straws from the untidy sparrow's hung. And, skimming forktailed in the evening air, When man first was were not the martens there? Did not those birds some human shelter crave, And stow beneath the cornice of his cave Their dry tight cups of clay? And from each door Peeped on a morning wiseheads three or four.

Yes, daw and owl, curlew and crested hern, Kingfisher, mallard, water-rail and tern, Chaffinch and greenfinch, warbler, stonechat, ruff, Pied wagtail, robin, fly-catcher and chough, Missel-thrush, magpie, sparrow-hawk, and jay, Built, those far ages gone, in this year's way. And the first man who walked the cliffs of Rame, As I this year, looked down and saw the same Blotches of rusty red on ledge and cleft With grey-green spots on them, while right and left A dizzying tangle of gulls were floating and flying, Wheeling and crossing and darting, crying and crying, Circling and crying, over and over and over, Crying with swoop and hover and fall and recover. And below on a rock against the grey sea fretted, Pipe-necked and stationary and silhouetted, Cormorants stood in a wise, black, equal row Above the nests and long blue eggs we know.

O delicate chain over all the ages stretched, O dumb tradition from what far darkness fetched: Each little architect with its one design Perpetual, fixed and right in stuff and line, Each little ministrant who knows one thing, One learned rite to celebrate the spring. Whatever alters else on sea or shore, These are unchanging: man must still explore.



* * * * *



W. J. TURNER



SILENCE

It was bright day and all the trees were still In the deep valley, and the dim Sun glowed; The clay in hard-baked fire along the hill Leapt through dark trunks to apples green and gold, Smooth, hard and cold, they shone like lamps of stone:

They were bright bubbles bursting from the trees, Swollen and still among the dark green boughs; On their bright skins the shadows of the leaves Seemed the faint ghosts of summers long since gone, Faint ghosts of ghosts, the dreams of ghostly eyes.

There was no sound between those breathless hills. Only the dim Sun hung there, nothing moved; The thronged, massed, crowded multitude of leaves Hung like dumb tongues that loll and gasp for air: The grass was thick and still, between the trees.

There were big apples lying on the ground, Shining, quite still, as though they had been stunned By some great violent spirit stalking through, Leaving a deep and supernatural calm Round a dead beetle upturned in a furrow.

A valley filled with dark, quiet, leaf-thick trees, Loaded with green, cold, faintly shining suns; And in the sky a great dim burning disc!— Madness it is to watch these twisted trunks And to see nothing move and hear no sound!

Let's make a noise, Hey!... Hey!... Hullo! Hullo!



KENT IN WAR

The pebbly brook is cold to-night, Its water soft as air, A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind Shadowless and bare, Leaping and running in this world Where dark-horned cattle stare:

Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm On the dark pavements of the sky, And trees are mummies swathed in sleep And small dark hills crowd wearily; Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds Without a sound march by.

Down at the bottom of the road I smell the woody damp Of that cold spirit in the grass, And leave my hill-top camp— Its long gun pointing in the sky— And take the Moon for lamp.

I stop beside the bright cold glint Of that thin spirit in the grass, So gay it is, so innocent! I watch its sparkling footsteps pass Lightly from smooth round stone to stone, Hid in the dew-hung grass.

My lamp shines in the globes of dew, And leaps into that crystal wind Running along the shaken grass To each dark hole that it can find— The crystal wind, the Moon my lamp, Have vanished in a wood that's blind.

High lies my small, my shadowy camp, Crowded about by small dark hills; With sudden small white flowers the sky Above the woods' dark greenness fills; And hosts of dark-browed, muttering trees In trance the white Moon stills.

I move among their tall grey forms, A thin moon-glimmering, wandering Ghost, Who takes his lantern through the world In search of life that he has lost, While watching by that long lean gun Up on his small hill post.



TALKING WITH SOLDIERS

The mind of the people is like mud, From which arise strange and beautiful things, But mud is none the less mud, Though it bear orchids and prophesying Kings, Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings.

It has found form and colour and light, The cold glimmer of the ice-wrapped Poles; It has called a far-off glow Arcturus, And some pale weeds, lilies of the valley.

It has imagined Virgil, Helen and Cassandra; The sack of Troy, and the weeping for Hector— Rearing stark up 'mid all this beauty In the thick, dull neck of Ajax.

There is a dark Pine in Lapland, And the great, figured Horn of the Reindeer, Moving soundlessly across the snow, Is its twin brother, double-dreamed, In the mind of a far-off people.

It is strange that a little mud Should echo with sounds, syllables, and letters, Should rise up and call a mountain Popocatapetl, And a green-leafed wood Oleander.

These are the ghosts of invisible things; There is no Lapland, no Helen and no Hector, And the Reindeer is a darkening of the brain, And Oleander is but Oleander.

Mary Magdalena and the vine Lachryma Christi Were like ghosts up the ghost of Vesuvius, As I sat and drank wine with the soldiers, As I sat in the Inn on the mountain, Watching the shadows in my mind.

The mind of the people is like mud, Where are the imperishable things, The ghosts that flicker in the brain— Silent women, orchids, and prophesying Kings, Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings!



SONG

Gently, sorrowfully sang the maid Sowing the ploughed field over, And her song was only: 'Come, O my lover!'

Strangely, strangely shone the light, Stilly wound the river: 'Thy love is a dead man, He'll come back never.'

Sadly, sadly passed the maid The fading dark hills over; Still her song far, far away said: 'Come, O my lover!'



THE PRINCESS

The stone-grey roses by the desert's rim Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand, Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar, That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon.

Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air— Some scent may linger of that ancient time, Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme, The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there.

A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow, In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun, With long dark lashes and small delicate hands: All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouth Until they buried her in shifting sand.

And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon And never shake the frail Tree's lightest leaves, And moonlight roses perfume the pale Dawn Until the scarlet life that left her lips Gathers its shattered beauty in the sky.



PEACE

In low chalk hills the great King's body lay, And bright streams fell, tinkling like polished tin, As though they carried off his armoury, And spread it glinting through his wide domain.

Old bearded soldiers sat and gazed dim-eyed At the strange brightness flowing under trees, And saw his sword flashing in ancient battles, And drank, and swore, and trembled helplessly.

And bright-haired maidens dipped their cold white arms, And drew them glittering colder, whiter, still; The sky sparkled like the dead King's blue eye Upon the sentries that were dead as trees.

His shining shield lay in an old grey town, And white swans sailed so still and dreamfully, They seemed the thoughts of those white, peaceful hills Mirrored that day within his glazing eyes.

And in the square the pale cool butter sold, Cropped from the daisies sprinkled on the downs, And old wives cried their wares, like queer day owls, Piercing the old men's sad and foolish dreams.

And Time flowed on till all the realm forgot The great King lying in the low chalk hills; Only the busy water dripping through His hard white bones knew of him lying there.



DEATH

When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieve As I grieved for my brother long ago. Scarce did my eyes grow dim, I had forgotten him; I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow, And many summers burned When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame, I heard that faded name Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world From which, years gone, he turned.

I looked up at my windows and I saw The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon. The air was very still Above a distant hill; It was the hour of night's full silver moon. 'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried; And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept, As my heart sadly crept About the empty hills, bathed in that light That lapped him when he died.

Ah! it was cold, so cold; do I not know How dead my heart on that remembered day! Clear in a far-away place I see his delicate face Just as he called me from my solitary play, Giving into my hands a tiny tree. We planted it in the dark, blossomless ground Gravely, without a sound; Then back I went and left him standing by His birthday gift to me.

In that far land perchance it quietly grows Drinking the rain, making a pleasant shade; Birds in its branches fly Out of the fathomless sky Where worlds of circling light arise and fade. Blindly it quivers in the bright flood of day, Or drowned in multitudinous shouts of rain Glooms o'er the dark-veiled plain— Buried below, the ghost that's in his bones Dreams in the sodden clay.

And, while he faded, drunk with beauty's eyes I kissed bright girls and laughed deep in dumb trees, That stared fixt in the air Like madmen in despair Gaped up from earth with the escaping breeze. I saw earth's exaltation slowly creep Out of their myriad sky-embracing veins. I laughed along the lanes, Meeting Death riding in from the hollow seas Through black-wreathed woods asleep.

I laughed, I swaggered on the cold hard ground— Through the grey air trembled a falling wave— 'Thou'rt pale, O Death!' I cried, Mocking him in my pride; And passing I dreamed not of that lonely grave, But of leaf-maidens whose pale, moon-like hands Above the tree-foam waved in the icy air, Sweeping with shining hair Through the green-tinted sky, one moment fled Out of immortal lands.

One windless Autumn night the Moon came out In a white sea of cloud, a field of snow; In darkness shaped of trees, I sank upon my knees And watched her shining, from the small wood below— Faintly Death flickered in an owl's far cry—- We floated soundless in the great gulf of space, Her light upon my face— Immortal, shining in that dark wood I knelt And knew I could not die.

And knew I could not die—O Death, didst thou Heed my vain glory, standing pale by thy dead? There is a spirit who grieves Amid earth's dying leaves; Was't thou that wept beside my brother's bed? For I did never mourn nor heed at all Him passing on his temporal elm-wood bier; I never shed a tear. The drooping sky spread grey-winged through my soul, While stones and earth did fall.

That sound rings down the years—I hear it yet— All earthly life's a winding funeral— And though I never wept, But into the dark coach stept, Dreaming by night to answer the blood's sweet call, She who stood there, high-breasted, with small, wise lips, And gave me wine to drink and bread to eat, Has not more steadfast feet, But fades from my arms as fade from mariners' eyes The sea's most beauteous ships.

The trees and hills of earth were once as close As my own brother, they are becoming dreams And shadows in my eyes; More dimly lies Guaya deep in my soul, the coastline gleams Faintly along the darkening crystalline seas. Glimmering and lovely still, 'twill one day go; The surging dark will flow Over my hopes and joys, and blot out all Earth's hills and skies and trees.

I shall look up one night and see the Moon For the last time shining above the hills, And thou, silent, wilt ride Over the dark hillside. 'Twill be, perchance, the time of daffodils— 'How come those bright immortals in the woods? Their joy being young, didst thou not drag them all Into dark graves ere Fall?' Shall life thus haunt me, wondering, as I go To thy deep solitudes?

There is a figure with a down-turned torch Carved on a pillar in an olden time, A calm and lovely boy Who comes not to destroy But to lead age back to its golden prime. Thus did an antique sculptor draw thee, Death, With smooth and beauteous brow and faint sweet smile, Not haggard, gaunt and vile, And thou perhaps art thus to whom men may, Unvexed, give up their breath.

But in my soul thou sittest like a dream Among earth's mountains, by her dim-coloured seas; A wild unearthly Shape In thy dark-glimmering cape, Piping a tune of wavering melodies, Thou sittest, ay, thou sittest at the feast Of my brief life among earth's bright-wreathed flowers, Staining the dancing hours With sombre gleams until, abrupt, thou risest And all, at once, is ceased.

END OF TEXT.