Poems & Ballads Volume I Part 24

Ye might end surely, surely pa.s.s Out of the mult.i.tude of things, Under the dust, beneath the gra.s.s, Deep in dim death, where no thought stings, No record clings.

No memory more of love or hate, No trouble, nothing that aspires, No sleepless labour thwarting fate, And thwarted; where no travail tires, Where no faith fires.

All pa.s.ses, nought that has been is, Things good and evil have one end.

Can anything be otherwise Though all men swear all things would mend With G.o.d to friend?

Can ye beat off one wave with prayer, Can ye move mountains? bid the flower Take flight and turn to a bird in the air?

Can ye hold fast for s.h.i.+ne or shower One wingless hour?

Ah sweet, and we too, can we bring One sigh back, bid one smile revive?

Can G.o.d restore one ruined thing, Or he who slays our souls alive Make dead things thrive?

Two gifts perforce he has given us yet, Though sad things stay and glad things fly; Two gifts he has given us, to forget All glad and sad things that go by, And then to die.

We know not whether death be good, But life at least it will not be: Men will stand saddening as we stood, Watch the same fields and skies as we And the same sea.

Let this be said between us here, One love grows green when one turns grey; This year knows nothing of last year; To-morrow has no more to say To yesterday.

Live and let live, as I will do, Love and let love, and so will I.

But, sweet, for me no more with you: Not while I live, not though I die.

Goodnight, goodbye.

AN INTERLUDE

In the greenest growth of the Maytime, I rode where the woods were wet, Between the dawn and the daytime; The spring was glad that we met.

There was something the season wanted, Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet; The breath at your lips that panted, The pulse of the gra.s.s at your feet.

You came, and the sun came after, And the green grew golden above; And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter, And the meadow-sweet shook with love.

Your feet in the full-grown gra.s.ses Moved soft as a weak wind blows; You pa.s.sed me as April pa.s.ses, With face made out of a rose.

By the stream where the stems were slender, Your bright foot paused at the sedge; It might be to watch the tender Light leaves in the springtime hedge,

On boughs that the sweet month blanches With flowery frost of May: It might be a bird in the branches, It might be a thorn in the way.

I waited to watch you linger With foot drawn back from the dew, Till a sunbeam straight like a finger Struck sharp through the leaves at you.

And a bird overhead sang _Follow_, And a bird to the right sang _Here_; And the arch of the leaves was hollow, And the meaning of May was clear.

I saw where the sun's hand pointed, I knew what the bird's note said; By the dawn and the dewfall anointed, You were queen by the gold on your head.

As the glimpse of a burnt-out ember Recalls a regret of the sun, I remember, forget, and remember What Love saw done and undone.

I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted, And knew we should both forget.

And May with her world in flower Seemed still to murmur and smile As you murmured and smiled for an hour; I saw you turn at the stile.

A hand like a white wood-blossom You lifted, and waved, and pa.s.sed, With head hung down to the bosom, And pale, as it seemed, at last.

And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame If you've forgotten my kisses And I've forgotten your name.

HENDECASYLLABICS

In the month of the long decline of roses I, beholding the summer dead before me, Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent, Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions Half divided the eyelids of the sunset; Till I heard as it were a noise of waters Moving tremulous under feet of angels Mult.i.tudinous, out of all the heavens; Knew the fluttering wind, the fluttered foliage, Shaken fitfully, full of sound and shadow; And saw, trodden upon by noiseless angels, Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight, Sweet sad straits in a soft subsiding channel, Blown about by the lips of winds I knew not, Winds not born in the north nor any quarter, Winds not warm with the south nor any suns.h.i.+ne; Heard between them a voice of exultation, "Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded, Even like as a leaf the year is withered, All the fruits of the day from all her branches Gathered, neither is any left to gather.

All the flowers are dead, the tender blossoms, All are taken away; the season wasted, Like an ember among the fallen ashes.

Now with light of the winter days, with moonlight, Light of snow, and the bitter light of h.o.a.rfrost, We bring flowers that fade not after autumn, Pale white chaplets and crowns of latter seasons, Fair false leaves (but the summer leaves were falser), Woven under the eyes of stars and planets When low light was upon the windy reaches Where the flower of foam was blown, a lily Dropt among the sonorous fruitless furrows And green fields of the sea that make no pasture: Since the winter begins, the weeping winter, All whose flowers are tears, and round his temples Iron blossom of frost is bound for ever."

SAPPHICS

All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron Stood and beheld me.

Then to me so lying awake a vision Came without sleep over the seas and touched me, Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too, Full of the vision,

Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled s.h.i.+ne as fire of sunset on western waters; Saw the reluctant

Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her, Looking always, looking with necks reverted, Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder Shone Mitylene;

Heard the flying feet of the Loves behind her Make a sudden thunder upon the waters, As the thunder flung from the strong unclosing Wings of a great wind.

So the G.o.ddess fled from her place, with awful Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her; While behind a clamour of singing women Severed the twilight.

Ah the singing, ah the delight, the pa.s.sion!

All the Loves wept, listening; sick with anguish, Stood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo; Fear was upon them,

While the tenth sang wonderful things they knew not.

Ah the tenth, the Lesbian! the nine were silent, None endured the sound of her song for weeping; Laurel by laurel,

Faded all their crowns; but about her forehead, Round her woven tresses and ashen temples White as dead snow, paler than gra.s.s in summer, Ravaged with kisses,

Shone a light of fire as a crown for ever.

Yea, almost the implacable Aphrodite Paused, and almost wept; such a song was that song.

Yea, by her name too

Called her, saying, "Turn to me, O my Sappho;"

Yet she turned her face from the Loves, she saw not Tears for laughter darken immortal eyelids, Heard not about her