Poems by Edward Shanks Part 4

Or could it be that when our blood was colder And side by side we sat with lips disparted I saw the perfect line of your resting shoulder, Your mouth, your peaceful throat with fuller-hearted, More splendid joy? Ah poignant joys all these!

And rest can stab the heart as well as pa.s.sion.

Yea, I have known sobs choke my heart to see Your honey-coloured hair move languorously, Ruffled, not by my hands, but by the breeze, And I have prayed the rough air for compa.s.sion.

Yea, I have knelt to the unpiteous air And knelt to G.o.ds I knew not, to remove The viewless hands whose sight I could not bear Out of the wind-blown head of her I love.

Ecstasy enters me and cannot speak, Seizes my hands and smites my fainting eyes And sends through all my veins a dim despair Of never apprehending all so fair And I have stood, unnerved and numb and weak, Watching your breathing bosom fall and rise.

Ah no! This joy is empty, incomplete, And sullied with a sense of too much longing, Where thoughts and fancies, sweet and bitter-sweet, And old regrets and new-born hopes come thronging.

Man can see beauty for a moment's s.p.a.ce And live, having seen her with an unfilmed eye, If all his body and all his soul in one Instant are tuned by pa.s.sion to unison And I can image in your kissing face The eternal meaning of the earth and sky.

_Song in Time of Waiting._

Because the days are long for you and me, I make this song to lighten their slow time, So that the weary waiting fruitful be Or blossomed only by my limping rhyme.

The days are very long And may not shortened be by any chime Of measured words or any fleeting song.

Yet let us gather blossoms while we wait And sing brave tunes against the face of fate.

Day after day goes by: the exquisite Procession of the variable year, Summer, a sheaf with flowers bound up in it, And autumn, tender till the frosts appear And dry the humid skies; And winter following on, aloof, austere, Clad in the garments of a frore sunrise; And spring again. May not too many a spring Make both our voices tremble as we sing!

The days are empty, empty, and the nights Are cold and void; there is no single gleam Across the s.p.a.ce unpeopled of delights, Save only now and then some thin-blood dream, Some stray of summer weather; The tedious hours like slow-foot laggarts seem, When you and I, my love, are not together And when I hold you in my arms at last The minutes go like April cloudlets past.

And yet no hidden charm, no desperate spell Can make these minutes longer, those less long: No force there is that yearning can impel Against the callous years which do us wrong.

No words, no whispered rune, No witchery and no Thessalian song Can make that far-off, misty day more soon.

The bravest tune, the most courageous rhyme Fall broken from the bastions of time.

A long and dusty road it is to tread; Few are the wayside flowers and far apart And are no sooner plucked than withered, When yearning heart is torn from yearning heart.

A weary road it is And yet far off I see clear waters start And clean sweet gra.s.s and tangled traceries Of whispering leaves, that laugh to see us come, And there one day ... one day shall be our home.

The day will come. O dearest, do not doubt!

It is not born as yet but I shall see Some day the fearless sunrise flas.h.i.+ng out And know the night will give you up to me.

O heart, my heart, be glad, Because the time will come at last when we Shall leave all grief and unlearn all things sad And know the joy than which none sweeter is And I shall sing a happier song than this.

_Sonnets on Separation._

I.

The time shall be, old Wisdom says, when you Shall grow awrinkled and I, indifferent, Shall no more follow the light steps I knew Or trace you, finding out the way you went, By swinging branches and the displaced flowers Among the thickets. I no more shall stand, With careful pencil through the adoring hours Scratching your grace on paper. My still hand No more shall tremble at the touch of yours And I'll write no more songs and you'll not sing.

But this is all a lie, for love endures And we shall closer kiss, remembering How budding trees turned barren in the sun Through this long week, whereof one day's now done.

II.

The time is all so short. One week is much To be without your deep and peaceful eyes, Your soft and all-contenting cheek, the touch Of well-caressing hands. O were we wise We would not love too strongly, would not bind Life into life so inextricably, That the dumb body suffers with the mind In a sad partners.h.i.+p this agony.

For death will come and swallow up us two, You there, I here, and we shall lie apart, Out of the houses and the woods we knew.

Then in the lonely grave, my dust-choked heart Out of the dust will raise, if it can speak, A threnody for this lost, lovely week.

III.

Is there no prophylactic against love?

Can I with drugs not dull the ache one night?

The rain is heavy and the low clouds move Over the empty home of our delight And find me in it weeping. You are far And you are now asleep. The night's so thick, Not even one stooping and compa.s.sionate star s.h.i.+nes on us both disparted. O be quick, Torturing days and heavy, turn your hours To minutes, melt yourselves into one day!

... The cold rain falls in swift a.s.sailing showers, Darkness is round me and light far away.

I'm in our well-known room and you're shut in By strange unfriendly walls I've never seen.

IV.

Lovers that drug themselves for ecstasy Seek love too closely in an overdose, When the sweet spasm turns to agony And the quick limbs are still and the eyes close.

I too, a fool, desired--to make love strong-- Absence and parting but the measure's brimmed, The dose is over-poured, the time's too long Already, though two nights have hardly dimmed My lonely eyes with the elusive sleep.

O I'll remember, I'll not wish again To go with ardent limbs into this deep Sea of dejection, this dull mere of pain: We'll love our safer loves upon the sh.o.r.e And quest for inexperienced joys no more.

V.

Through the closed curtains comes the early sun, First a pale finger, preluding the hand.

Outside more certainly the day's begun, Where bright and brighter still the chestnuts stand, Broad candles lighting up at the first fire.

I stir and turn in my uneasy sleep But in my sorrow sleep's my whole desire.

About the still room small lights move and creep Silently, stealthily on wall and chair, Till to strong rays and s.h.i.+ning lights they grow, Which with their magic change the waiting air And all its sleeping motes to gold and throw A golden radiance on your empty bed, Which wakes me with vain likeness to your head.

VI.

To-morrow I shall see you come again Between the pale trees, through the sullen gate, Out of the dark and secret house of pain Where lie the unhappy and unfortunate.

To-morrow you will live with me and love me, Spring will go on again, I'll see the flowers And little things, ridiculous things, shall move me To smiles or tears or verse. The world is ours To-morrow. Open heaths, tall trees, great skies, With ma.s.sive clouds that fly and come again, Sweet fields, delicious rivers and the rise And fall of swelling land from the swift train We'll see together, knowing that all this Is one great room wherein we two may kiss.

VII.

We're at the world's top now. The hills around Stand proud in order with the valleys deep, The hills with pastures drest, with tall trees crowned, And the low valleys dipt in sunny sleep.

A sound brims all the country up, a noise Of wheels upon the road and labouring bees And trodden heather, mixing with the voice Of small lost winds that die among the trees.

And we are p.r.o.ne beneath the flooding sun, So drenched, so soaked in the unceasing light, That colours, sounds and your close presence are one, A texture woven up of all delight, Whose s.h.i.+ning threads my hands may not undo, Yet one thread runs the whole bright garment through.

_The Morning Sun._

Perhaps you sleep now, fifty miles to the south, While I sit here and dream of you by night.

The thick soft blankets drawn about your mouth Have made for you a nest of warm delight; Your short crisp hair is thrown abroad and spilled Upon the pillow's whiteness and your eyes Are quiet and the round soft lids are filled With sleep.

But I shall watch until sunrise Creeps into chilly clouds and heavy air, Across the lands where you sleep and I wake, And I shall know the sun has seen you there, Unmoving though the winter morning break.

Next, you will lift your hands and rub your eyes And turn to sleep again but wake and start And feel, half dreaming, with a dear surprise, My hand in the sunbeam touching at your heart.