A Cluster of Grapes Part 8

Sing on! for though the sun be coy I sense with thee a budding joy, And all my heart with ranging rhyme Is poet for the prime!

LA DANSEUSE

She moved like silence swathed in light, Like mists at morning clear; A music that enamoured sight Yet did elude the ear.

A rapture and a spirit clad In motion soft as sleep; The epitome of all things glad, The sum of all that weep;

Her form was like a poet's mind-- By all sensations sought; She seemed the substance of the wind, The shape of lyric thought,--

A being 'mid terrestrial things Transcendently forlorn, From time bound far on filmy wings For some diviner bourne.

The rhythms of the raptured heart Swayed to her sweet control; Life in her keeping all was art, And all of body soul.

Lone-s.h.i.+mmering in the roseate air She seemed to ebb and flow, A memory, perilously fair, And pale from long ago.

She stooped to time's remembered tears, Yearned to undawned delight.

Ah beauty, pa.s.sionate from the years!

Oh body wise and white!

She vanished like an evening cloud, A sunset's radiant gleam.

She vanished ... Life awhile endowed The darkness with a dream.

G.o.d RETURNS

Dear G.o.d, before Thee many weep And bow the solemn knee; But I who have thy joy to keep Will sing and dance for Thee.

Come, lilt ye, lilt ye, lightsome birds, For ye are glad as I; Come frisk, ye sunlit flocks and herds And cherubs of the sky;

Sweet elfin mischief of the hill, We'll share a laugh together-- Oh half the world is hoyden still, And waits for whistling weather!

The G.o.d of age is staid and old, And asks a sober tongue; But till the heart of youth is cold The G.o.d of youth is young!

Then kiss, blithe la.s.s and happy lad!

The rainbow pa.s.ses over, And love and life, the leal and glad, Must step with time the rover.

Trip buds and bells in spangled ways!

Leap, leaves in every tree!

Ye winds and waters, nights and days, Dance, dance for Deity.

On every hand is elfin land, And faery gifts are falling; Across the world, a twinkling band, The elves are calling--calling.

In welcome smile the witching skies, And with a jocund train, With dancing joy-light in His eyes, G.o.d, G.o.d comes home again!

ALICE MEYNELL

TO THE BODY

Thou inmost, ultimate Council of judgment, palace of decrees, Where the high senses hold their spiritual state, Sued by earth's emba.s.sies, And sign, approve, accept, conceive, create;

Create--thy senses close With the world's pleas. The random odours reach Their sweetness in the place of thy repose, Upon thy tongue the peach, And in thy nostrils breathes the breathing rose.

To thee, secluded one, The dark vibrations of the sightless skies, The lovely inexplicit colours run; The light gropes for those eyes.

O thou august! thou dost command the sun.

Music, all dumb, hath trod Into thine ear her one effectual way; And fire and cold approach to gain thy nod, Where thou call'st up the day, Where thou await'st the appeal of G.o.d.

CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE

With this ambiguous earth His dealings have been told us. These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth, The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

But not a star of all The innumerable host of stars has heard How He administered this terrestrial ball.

Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word.

Of His earth-visiting feet None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet, Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

No planet knows that this Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

Nor, in our little day, May His devices with the heavens be guessed, His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way Or His bestowals there be manifest.

But in the eternities, Doubtless we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

O, be prepared, my soul!

To read the inconceivable, to scan The million forms of G.o.d those stars unroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

MATERNITY

One wept whose only child was dead, New-born, ten years ago.

"Weep not; he is in bliss," they said.

She answered, "Even so.

"Ten years ago was born in pain A child, not now forlorn.

But oh, ten years ago, in vain, A mother, a mother was born."

WILL H. OGILVIE