Collected Poems Volume I Part 30

Now like a pageant of the Golden Year In rich memorial pomp the hours go by, With rose-embroidered flags unfurled And ta.s.selled bugles calling through the world Wake, for your hope draws near!

Wake, for in each soft porch of azure sky, Seen through each arch of pale green leaves, the Gate Of Eden swings apart for Summer's royal state.

Ah, when the Spirit of the moving scene Has entered in, the splendour will be spent!

The flutes will cease, the gates will close; Only the scattered crimson of the rose, The wild wood's hapless queen, Dis-kingdomed, will declare the way he went; And, in a little while, her court will go, Pa.s.s like a cloud and leave no trace on earth below.

Tell us no more of Autumn, the slow gold Of fruitage ripening in a world's decay, The falling leaves, the moist rich breath Of woods that swoon and crumble into death Over the gorgeous mould: Give us the flash and scent of keen-edged May Where wastes that bear no harvest yield their bloom, Rude crofts of flowering nettle, bents of yellow broom.

The very reeds and sedges of the fen Open their hearts and blossom to the sky; The wild thyme on the mountain's knees Unrolls its purple market to the bees; Unharvested of men The Traveller's Joy can only smile and die.

Joy, joy alone the throbbing whitethroats bring, Joy to themselves and heaven! They were but born to sing!

And see, between the northern-scented pines, The whole sweet summer sharpens to a glow!

See, as the well-spring plashes cool Over a shadowy green fern-fretted pool The mystic sunbeam s.h.i.+nes For one mad moment on a breast of snow A warm white shoulder and a glowing arm Up-flung, where some swift Undine sinks in shy alarm.

And if she were not all a dream, and lent Life for a little to your own desire, Oh, lover in the hawthorn lane, Dream not you hold her, or you dream in vain!

The violet, spray-besprent When from that plunge the rainbows flashed like fire, Will scarce more swiftly lose its happy dew Than eyes which Undine haunts will cease to s.h.i.+ne on you.

What though the throstle pour his heart away, A happy spendthrift of uncounted gold, Swinging upon a blossomed briar With soft throat lifted in a wild desire To make the world his may.

Ever the pageant through the gates is rolled Further away; in vain the rich notes throng Flooding the mellow noon with wave on wave of song.

The feathery meadows like a lilac sea, Knee-deep, with honeyed clover, red and white, Roll billowing: the crisp clouds pa.s.s Trailing their soft blue shadows o'er the gra.s.s; The skylark, mad with glee, Quivers, up, up, to lose himself in light; And, through the forest, like a fairy dream Through some dark mind, the ferns in branching beauty stream.

Enough of joy! A little respite lend, Summer, fair G.o.d that hast so little heed Of these that serve thee but to die, Mere trappings of thy tragic pageantry!

Show us the end, the end!

We too, with human hearts that break and bleed, March to the night that rounds their fleeting hour, And feel we, too, perchance but serve some loftier Power.

O that our hearts might pa.s.s away with thee, Burning and pierced and full of thy sweet pain, Burst through the gates with thy swift soul, Hunt thy most white perfection to the goal, Nor wait, once more to see Thy chaliced lilies rotting in the rain, Thy ragged yellowing banners idly hung In woods that have forgotten all the songs we sung!

_Peace! Like a pageant of the Golden Year In rich memorial pomp the hours go by, With rose-embroidered flags unfurled And ta.s.selled bugles calling through the world Wake, for your hope draws near!

Wake, for in each soft porch of azure sky, Seen through each arch of pale green leaves, the Gate Of Eden swings apart for Summer's royal state._

Not wait! Forgive, forgive that feeble cry Of blinded pa.s.sion all unworthy thee!

For here the spirit of man may claim A loftier vision and a n.o.bler aim Than e'er was born to die: Man only, of earth, throned on Eternity, From his own sure abiding-place can mark How earth's great golden dreams go past into the dark.

AT DAWN

O Hesper-Phosphor, far away s.h.i.+ning, the first, the last white star, Hear'st thou the strange, the ghostly cry, That moan of an ancient agony From purple forest to golden sky s.h.i.+vering over the breathless bay?

It is not the wind that wakes with the day; For see, the gulls that wheel and call, Beyond the tumbling white-topped bar, Catching the sun-dawn on their wings, Like snow-flakes or like rose-leaves fall, Flutter and fall in airy rings; And drift, like lilies ruffling into blossom Upon some golden lake's unwrinkled bosom.

Are not the forest's deep-lashed fringes wet With tears? Is not the voice of all regret Breaking out of the dark earth's heart?

She too, she too, has loved and lost; and we-- We that remember our lost Aready, Have we not known, we too, The primal greenwood's arch of blue, The radiant clouds at sun-rise curled Around the brows of the golden world; The marble temples, washed with dew, To which with rosy limbs aflame The violet-eyed Thala.s.sian came, Came, pitiless, only to display How soon the youthful splendour dies away; Came, only to depart Laughing across the grey-grown bitter sea; For each man's life is earth's epitome, And though the years bring more than aught they take, Yet might his heart and hers well break Remembering how one prayer must still be vain.

How one fair hope is dead, One pa.s.sion quenched, one glory fled With those first loves that never come again.

How many years, how many generations, Have heard that sigh in the dawn, When the dark earth yearns to the unforgotten nations And the old loves withdrawn, Old loves, old lovers, wonderful and unnumbered As waves on the wine-dark sea, 'Neath the tall white towers of Troy and the temples that slumbered In Thessaly?

From the beautiful palaces, from the miraculous portals, The swift white feet are flown!

They were taintless of dust, the proud, the peerless Immortals As they sped to their loftier throne!

Perchance they are there, earth dreams, on the sh.o.r.es of Hesper, Her rosy-bosomed Hours, Listening the wild fresh forest's enchanted whisper, Crowned with its new strange flowers; Listening the great new ocean's triumphant thunder On the stainless unknown sh.o.r.e, While that perilous queen of the world's delight and wonder Comes white from the foam once more.

When the mists divide with the dawn o'er those glittering waters, Do they gaze over unoared seas-- Naiad and nymph and the woodland's rose-crowned daughters And the Oceanides?

Do they sing together, perchance, in that diamond splendour, That world of dawn and dew, With eyelids twitching to tears and with eyes grown tender The sweet old songs they knew, The songs of Greece? Ah, with harp-strings mute do they falter As the earth like a small star pales?

When the heroes launch their s.h.i.+p by the smoking altar Does a memory lure their sails?

Far, far away, do their hearts resume the story That never on earth was told, When all those urgent oars on the waste of glory Cast up its gold?

_Are not the forest fringes wet With tears? Is not the voice of all regret Breaking out of the dark earth's heart?

She too, she too, has loved and lost; and though She turned last night in disdain Away from the sunset-embers, From her soul she can never depart; She can never depart from her pain.

Vainly she strives to forget; Beautiful in her woe, She awakes in the dawn and remembers._

THE SWIMMER'S RACE

I

Between the clover and the trembling sea They stand upon the golden-shadowed sh.o.r.e In naked boyish beauty, a strenuous three, Hearing the breakers' deep Olympic roar; Three young athletes poised on a forward limb, Mirrored like marble in the smooth wet sand, Three statues moulded by Praxiteles: The blue horizon rim Recedes, recedes upon a lovelier land, And England melts into the skies of Greece.

II

The dome of heaven is like one drop of dew, Quivering and clear and cloudless but for one Crisp bouldered Alpine range that blinds the blue With snowy gorges glittering to the sun: Forward the runners lean, with outstretched hand Waiting the word--ah, how the light relieves The silken rippling muscles as they start Spurning the yellow sand, Then skimming lightlier till the goal receives The winner, head thrown back and lips apart.

III

Now at the sea-marge on the sand they lie At rest for a moment, panting as they breathe, And gazing upward at the unbounded sky While the sand nestles round them from beneath; And in their hands they gather up the gold And through their fingers let it lazily stream Over them, dusking all their limbs' fair white, Blotting their shape and mould, Till, mixed into the distant gazer's dream Of earth and heaven, they seem to sink from sight.

IV

But one, in seeming petulance, oppressed With heat has cast his brown young body free: With arms behind his head and heaving breast He lies and gazes at the cool bright sea; So young Leander might when in the noon He panted for the starry eyes of eve And whispered o'er the waste of wandering waves, "Hero, bid night come soon!"

Nor knew the nymphs were waiting to receive And kiss his pale limbs in their cold sea-caves.

V

Now to their feet they leap and, with a shout, Plunge through the glittering breakers without fear, Breast the green-arching billows, and still out, As if each dreamed the arms of Hero near; Now like three sunbeams on an emerald crest, Now like three foam-flakes melting out of sight, They are blent with all the glory of all the sea; One with the golden West; Merged in a myriad waves of mystic light As life is lost in immortality.

THE VENUS OF MILO