A Jongleur Strayed Part 5

And perished shapes rebuild themselves anew, Nourished on essences of fire and dew, And in earth's cheek, but now so wistful wan, The colour floods, and from deep wells of power Rises the sap of resurrection; The dead branch buds, the dry staff breaks in flower, The gra.s.s comes surging on.

These ghostly things that in November died, How come they thus again adream with pride?

I saw the Red Rose lying in her tomb, Yet comes she lovelier back, a redder rose; What paints upon her cheek this vampire bloom?

Beloved, when to the dark thy beauty goes, Thee too will Spring re-lume?

Verily, nothing dies; a brief eclipse Is all; and this blessed union of our lips Shall bind us still though we have lips no more: For as the Rose and as the G.o.ds are we, Returning ever; but the shapes we wore Shall have some look of immortality More s.h.i.+ning than before.

Make we our offerings at Adonis' shrine, For this is Love's own resurrection day, Bring we the honeyed cakes, the sacred wine, And myrtle garlands on his altars lay: _O Thou, beloved alike of Proserpine And Aphrodite, to our prayers incline; Be thou propitious to this love of ours, And we, the summer long, shall bring thee flowers._

NATURE THE HEALER

When all the world has gone awry, And I myself least favour find With my own self, and but to die And leave the whole sad coil behind, Seems but the one and only way; Should I but hear some water falling Through woodland veils in early May, And small bird unto small bird calling-- O then my heart is glad as they.

Lifted my load of cares, and fled My ghosts of weakness and despair, And, unafraid, I raise my head And Life to do its utmost dare; Then if in its accustomed place One flower I should chance find blowing, With lovely resurrected face From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing-- I laugh to think of my disgrace.

A simple brook, a simple flower, A simple wood in green array,-- What, Nature, thy mysterious power To bind and heal our mortal clay?

What mystic surgery is thine, Whose eyes of us seem all unheeding, That even so sad a heart as mine Laughs at the wounds that late were bleeding?-- Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.

I think we are not otherwise Than all the children of thy knee; For so each furred and winged one flies, Wounded, to lay its heart on thee; And, strangely nearer to thy breast, Knows, and yet knows not, of thy healing, Asking but there awhile to rest, With wisdom beyond our revealing-- Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.

LOVE ETERNAL

The human heart will never change, The human dream will still go on, The enchanted earth be ever strange With moonlight and the morning sun, And still the seas shall shout for joy, And swing the stars as in a gla.s.s, The girl be angel for the boy, The lad be hero for the la.s.s.

The fas.h.i.+ons of our mortal brains New names for dead men's thoughts shall give, But we find not for all our pains Why 'tis so wonderful to live; The beauty of a meadow-flower Shall make a mock of all our skill, And G.o.d, upon his lonely tower Shall keep his secret--secret still.

The old magician of the skies, With coloured and sweet-smelling things, Shall charm the sense and trance the eyes, Still onward through a million springs; And nothing old and nothing new Into the magic world be born, Yea! nothing older than the dew, And nothing younger than the morn.

Delight and Destiny and Death Shall still the mortal story weave, Man shall not lengthen out his breath, Nor stay when it is time to leave; And all in vain for him to ask His little meaning in the Whole, Done well or ill his tiny task, The mystic making of his soul.

Ah! love, and is it not enough To have our part in this romance Made of such planetary stuff, Strange partners in the cosmic dance?

Though Life be all too swift a dream, And its fair rose must fade and fall, Life has no sorrow in its scheme As never to have lived at all.

This fire that through our being runs, When our two hearts together beat, Is one with yonder burning sun's, Two atoms that in glory meet; What unimagined loss it were, If that dread power in which we trust Had left your eyes, your lips, your hair, Nought but un-animated dust.

Unknown the thrilling touch divine That sets our magic clay aflame, That wrought your beauty to be mine, And joy enough to speak your name; Thanks be to Life that did this thing, Unsought, beloved, for you and me, Gave us the rose, and birds to sing, The golden earth, the blue-robed sea.

THE LOVELIEST FACE AND THE WILD ROSE

The loveliest face! I turned to her Shut in 'mid savage rocks and trees;-- 'Twas in the May-time of the year, And our two hearts were filled with ease-- And pointed where a wild-rose grew, Suddenly fair in that grim place: "We should know all, if we but knew Whence came this flower, and whence--this face."

The loveliest face! My thoughts went around: "Strange sister of this little rose, So softly 'scaped from underground; O tell me if your beauty knows, Being itself so fair a thing, How came this lovely thing so fair, How came it to such blossoming, Leaning so strangely from the air?

"The wonder of its being born, So lone and lovely--even as you-- Half maiden-moon, half maiden-morn, And delicately sad with dew; How came it in this rocky place?

Or shall I ask the rose if she Knows how this marvel of your face On this harsh planet came to be?"

Earth's bluest eyes gazed into mine, And on her head Earth's brightest gold Made all the rocks with glory s.h.i.+ne-- But still the secret went untold; For rose nor girl, no more than I, Their own mysterious meaning knew, Save that alike from earth and sky Each her enchanted being drew.

Both from deep wells of wonder sprang, Both children of the cosmic dream, Alike with yonder bird that sang, And little lives that flit and gleam; Sparks from the central rose of fire That at the heart of being burns, That draws the lily from the mire And trodden dust to beauty turns.

Strange wand of Beauty--that transforms Old dross to dreams, that softly glows On the fierce rainbowed front of storms, And smiles on unascended snows, That from the travail of lone seas Wrests sighing sh.e.l.l and moonlit pearl, And gathers up all sorceries In the white being of one girl.

AS IN THE WOODLAND I WALK

As in the woodland I walk, many a strange thing I learn-- How from the dross and the drift the beautiful things return, And the fires quenched in October in April reburn;

How foulness grows fair with the stern l.u.s.tration of sleets and snows, And rottenness changes back to the breath and the cheek of the rose, And how gentle the wind that seems wild to each blossom that blows;

How the lost is ever found, and the darkness the door of the light, And how soft the caress of the hand that to shape must not fear to smite, And how the dim pearl of the moon is drawn from the gulf of the night;

How, when the great tree falls, with its empire of rustling leaves, The earth with a thousand hands its sunlit ruin receives, And out of the wreck of its glory each secret artist weaves

Splendours anew and arabesques and tints on his swaying loom, Soft as the eyes of April, and black as the brows of doom, And the fires give back in blue-eyed flowers the woodland they consume;

How when the streams run dry, the thunder calls on the hills, And the clouds spout silver showers in the laps of the little rills, And each spring brims with the morning star, and each thirsty fountain fills;

And how, when the songs seemed ended, and all the music mute, There is always somewhere a secret tune, some string of a hidden lute, Lonely and undismayed that has faith in the flower and the fruit.

So I learn in the woods--that all things come again, That sorrow turns to joy, and that laughter is born of pain, That the burning gold of June is the gray of December's rain.

TO A MOUNTAIN SPRING

Strange little spring, by channels past our telling, Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling; Through what blind ways, we know not whence You darkling come to dance and dimple-- Strange little spring!

Nature hath no such innocence, And no more secret thing-- So mysterious and so simple; Earth hath no such fairy daughter Of all her witchcraft shapes of water.

When all the land with summer burns, And brazen noon rides hot and high, And tongues are parched and gra.s.ses dry, Still are you green and hushed with ferns, And cool as some old sanctuary; Still are you br.i.m.m.i.n.g o'er with dew And stars that dipped their feet in you.

And I believe when none is by, Only the young moon in the sky-- The Greeks of old were right about you-- A naiad, like a marble flower, Lifts up her lovely shape from out you, Swaying like a silver shower.

So in old years dead and gone Brimmed the spring on Helicon, Just a little spring like you-- Ferns and moss and stars and dew-- Nigh the sacred Muses' dwelling, Dancing, dimpling, welling, welling.

NOON