Collected Poems Volume I Part 10

IV

Often in summer twilights, too, he would sit on a coil of rope, As the stars came out in their twinkling crowds to play with wonder and hope, While he watched the side of her clear-cut face as she sat on the jetty and fished, And even to help her coil her line was more than he hoped or wished.

V

But once or twice o'er the dark green tide he saw with a solemn delight, Hooked and splas.h.i.+ng after her line, a flash and a streak of white; As hand over hand she hauled it up, a great black conger eel, For Dan Trevennick to kill as it squirmed with its head beneath his heel.

VI

And at last, with a crash and a sunset cry from the low soft evening star, A shadowy schooner suddenly loomed o'er the dark green oily bar; With fairy-like spars and misty masts in the golden dusk of gloaming, Where the last white seamew's wide-spread wings were wistfully westward roaming;

VII

Then the song of the foreign seamen rose in the magical evening air, Faint and far away, as it seemed, but they knew it was, ah, so near; Far away as her heart from Dan's as he sheepishly drew to her side, And near as her heart when he kissed the lips of his newly promised bride.

VIII

And when they were riding away in the train on the night of their honeymoon, What a whisper tingled against her cheek as it blushed like a rose in June; For she said, "I am tired and ready for bed," and Dan said, "So am I;"

And she murmured, "Are you tired, too, poor Dan?" and he answered her, "No, dear, why?"

IX

It was never a problem-play, at least, and the end of it all is this; They were drowned in the bliss of their ignorance and buried the rest in a kiss; And they loved one another their whole life long, as lovers will often do; For it never was only the fairy-tales that rang so royally true.

X

_The rose in her cheek was painted red by the brisk Atlantic breeze; Her eyes were blue, and her jersey was blue as the lapping, slapping seas; Her head was bare, and her thick black hair was coiled behind a throat Chiselled as hard and bright and bold as the bow of a sailing boat._

XI

_Eighteen hundred and forty-three, Dan Trevennick was lost at sea; And, buried here at her husband's side Lies the body of Joan, his bride, Who, a little while after she lost him, died._

A SONG OF TWO BURDENS

The round brown sails were reefed and struggling home Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep: Dark in the cottage she sang, "Soon, soon, he will come, Dreamikin, Drowsy-head, sleep, my little one, sleep."

Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep Was it only a dream or a shadow that vanished away?

"Lullaby, little one, sleep, my little one, sleep."

She sang in a dream as the shadows covered the day.

Was it only a sail or a shadow that vanished away?

The boats come home: there is one that will never return; But she sang in a dream as the shadows buried the day; And she set the supper and begged the fire to burn.

The boats come home; but one will never return; And a strangled cry went up from the struggling sea.

She sank on her knees and begged the fire to burn, "Burn, oh burn, for my love is coming to me!"

A strangled cry went up from the struggling sea, A cry where the ghastly surf to the moon-dawn rolled; "Burn, oh burn; for my love is coming to me, His hands will be scarred with the ropes and starved with the cold."

A strangled cry where the foam in the moonlight rolled, A bitter cry from the heart of the ghastly sea; "His hands will be frozen, the night is dark and cold, Burn, oh burn, for my love is coming to me."

One cry to G.o.d from the soul of the shuddering sea, One moment of stifling lips and struggling hands; "Burn, oh burn; for my love is coming to me; And oh, I think the little one understands."

One moment of stifling lips and struggling hands, Then only the glitter and gloom of the angry deep; "And oh, I think the little one understands; Dreamikin, Drowsy-head, sleep, my little one, sleep."

EARTH-BOUND

Ghosts? Love would fain believe, Earth being so fair, the dead might wish to return!

Is it so strange if, even in heaven, they yearn For the May-time and the dreams it used to give?

Through dark abysms of s.p.a.ce, From strange new spheres where Death has called them now May they not, with a crown on every brow, Still cry to the loved earth's lost familiar face?

We two, love, we should come Seeking a little refuge from the light Of the blinding terrible star-sown Infinite, Seeking some sheltering roof, some four-walled home,

From that too high, too wide Communion with the universe and G.o.d, How glad to creep back to some lane we trod Hemmed in with a hawthorn hedge on either side.

Fresh from death's boundless birth, How fond the circled vision of the sea Would seem to souls tired of Infinity, How kind the soft blue boundaries of earth,

How rich the nodding spray Of pale green leaves that made the sapphire deep A background to the dreams of that brief sleep We called our life when heaven was far away.

How strange would be the sight Of the little towns and twisted streets again, Where all the hurrying works and ways of men Would seem a children's game for our delight.

What boundless heaven could give This joy in the strait austere restraints of earth, Whereof the dead have felt the immortal dearth Who look upon G.o.d's face and cannot live?

Our ghosts would clutch at flowers As drowning men at straws, for fear the sea Should sweep them back to G.o.d's Eternity, Still clinging to the day that once was ours.

No more with fevered brain Plunging across the gulfs of s.p.a.ce and Time Would we revisit this our earthly clime We two, if we could ever come again;

Not as we came of old, But reverencing the flesh we now despise And gazing out with consecrated eyes, Each of us glad of the other's hand to hold.

So we should wander nigh Our mortal home, and see its little roof Keeping the deep eternal night aloof And yielding us a refuge from the sky.

We should steal in, once more, Under the cloudy lilac at the gate, Up the walled garden, then with hearts elate Forget the stars and close our cottage door.