Toward the Gulf Part 10

THE LANDSCAPE

You and your landscape! There it lies Stripped, resuming its disguise, Clothed in dreams, made bare again, Symbol infinite of pain, Rapture, magic, mystery Of vanished days and days to be.

There's its sea of tidal gra.s.s Over which the south winds pa.s.s, And the sun-set's Tuscan gold Which the distant windows hold For an instant like a sphere Bursting ere it disappear.

There's the dark green woods which throve In the spell of Leese's Grove.

And the winding of the road; And the hill o'er which the sky Stretched its pallied vacancy Ere the dawn or evening glowed.

And the wonder of the town Somewhere from the hill-top down Nestling under hills and woods And the meadow's solitudes.

And your paper knight of old Secrets of the landscape told.

And the hedge-rows where the pond Took the blue of heavens beyond The hastening clouds of gusty March.

There you saw their wrinkled arch Where the East wind cracks his whips Round the little pond and clips Main-sails from your toppled s.h.i.+ps. ...

Landscape that in youth you knew Past and present, earth and you!

All the legends and the tales Of the uplands, of the vales; Sounds of cattle and the cries Of ploughmen and of travelers Were its soul's interpreters.

And here the lame were always lame.

Always gray the gray of head.

And the dead were always dead Ere the landscape had become Your cradle, as it was their tomb.

And when the thunder storms would waken Of the dream your soul was not forsaken: In the room where the dormer windows look-- There were your knight and the tattered book.

With colors of the forest green Gabled roofs and the demesne Of faery kingdoms and faery time Storied in pre-natal rhyme. ...

Past the orchards, in the plain The cattle fed on in the rain.

And the storm-beaten horseman sped Rain blinded and with bended head.

And John the ploughman comes and goes In labor wet, with steaming clothes.

This is your landscape, but you see Not terror and not destiny Behind its loved, maternal face, Its power to change, or fade, replace Its wonder with a deeper dream, Unfolding to a vaster theme.

From time eternal was this earth?

No less this landscape with your birth Arose, nor leaves you, nor decay Finds till the twilight of your day.

It bore you, moulds you to its plan.

It ends with you as it began, But bears the seed of future years Of higher raptures, dumber tears.

For soon you lose the landscape through Absence, sorrow, eyes grown true To the naked limbs which show Buds that never more may blow.

Now you know the lame were straight Ere you knew them, and the fate Of the old is yet to die.

Now you know the dead who lie In the graves you saw where first The landscape on your vision burst, Were not always dead, and now Shadows rest upon the brow Of the souls as young as you.

Some are gone, though years are few Since you roamed with them the hills.

So the landscape changes, wills All the changes, did it try Its promises to justify?...

For you return and find it bare: There is no heaven of golden air.

Your eyes around the horizon rove, A clump of trees is Leese's Grove.

And what's the hedgerow, what's the pond?

A wallow where the vagabond Beast will not drink, and where the arch Of heaven in the days of March Refrains to look. A blinding rain Beats the once gilded window pane.

John, the poor wretch, is gone, but bread Tempts other feet that path to tread Between the barn and house, and brave The March rain and the winds that rave. ...

O, landscape I am one who stands Returned with pale and broken hands Glad for the day that I have known, And finds the deserted doorway strown With shoulder blade and spinal bone.

And you who nourished me and bred I find the spirit from you fled.

You gave me dreams,'twas at your breast My soul's beginning rose and pressed My steps afar at last and shaped A world elusive, which escaped Whatever love or thought could find Beyond the tireless wings of mind.

Yet grown by you, and feeding on Your strength as mother, you are gone When I return from living, trace My steps to see how I began, And deeply search your mother face To know your inner self, the place For which you bore me, sent me forth To wander, south or east or north. ...

Now the familiar landscape lies With breathless breast and hollow eyes.

It knows me not, as I know not Its secret, spirit, all forgot Its kindred look is, as I stand A stranger in an unknown land.

Are we not earth-born, formed of dust Which seeks again its love and trust In an old landscape, after change In hearts grown weary, wrecked and strange?

What though we struggled to emerge Dividual, footed for the urge Of further self-discoveries, though In the mid-years we cease to know, Through disenchanted eyes, the spell That clothed it like a miracle-- Yet at the last our steps return Its deeper mysteries to learn.

It has been always us, it must Clasp to itself our kindred dust.

We cannot free ourselves from it.

Near or afar we must submit To what is in us, what was grown Out of the landscape's soil, the known And unknown powers of soil and soul.

As bodies yield to the control Of the earth's center, and so bend In age, so hearts toward the end Bend down with lips so long athirst To waters which were known at first-- The little spring at Leese's Grove Was your first love, is your last love!

When those we knew in youth have crept Under the landscape, which has kept Nothing we saw with youthful eyes; Ere G.o.d is formed in the empty skies, I wonder not our steps are pressed Toward the mystery of their rest.

That is the hope at bud which kneels Where ancestors the tomb conceals.

Age no less than youth would lean Upon some love. For what is seen No more of father, mother, friend, For hands of flesh lost, eyes grown blind In death, a something which a.s.sures, Comforts, allays our fears, endures.

Just as the landscape and our home In childhood made of heaven's dome, And all the farthest ways of earth A place as sheltered as the hearth.

Is it not written at the last day Heaven and earth shall roll away?

Yes, as my landscape pa.s.sed through death, Lay like a corpse, and with new breath Became instinct with fire and light-- So shall it roll up in my sight, Pa.s.s from the realm of finite sense, Become a thing of spirit, whence I shall pa.s.s too, its child in faith Of dreams it gave me, which nor death Nor change can wreck, but still reveal In change a Something vast, more real Than sunsets, meadows, green-wood trees, Or even faery presences.

A Something which the earth and air Trans.m.u.tes but keeps them what they were; Clear films of beauty grown more thin As we approach and enter in.

Until we reach the scene that made Our landscape just a thing of shade.

TO-MORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY

Well, then, another drink! Ben Jonson knows, So do you, Michael Drayton, that to-morrow I reach my fifty-second year. But hark ye, To-morrow lacks two days of being a month-- Here is a secret--since I made my will.

Heigh ho! that's done too! I wonder why I did it?

That I should make a will! Yet it may be That then and jump at this most crescent hour Heaven inspired the deed.

As a mad younker I knew an aged man in Warwicks.h.i.+re Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," for sadness Of change, or pa.s.sing time, or secret thoughts.

If it was spring he sighed it, if 'twas fall, With drifting leaves, he looked upon the rain And with doleful suspiration kept This habit of his grief. And on a time As he stood looking at the flying clouds, I loitering near, expectant, heard him say it, Inquired, "Why do you say 'Ah, mercy me,'

Now that it's April?" So he hobbled off And left me empty there.

Now here am I!

Oh, it is strange to find myself this age, And rustling like a peascod, though unsh.e.l.led, And, like this aged man of Warwicks.h.i.+re, Slaved by a mood which must have breath--"Tra-la!

That's what I say instead of "Ah, mercy me."

For look you, Ben, I catch myself with "Tra-la"

The moment I break sleep to see the day.

At work, alone, vexed, laughing, mad or glad I say, "Tra-la" unknowing. Oft at table I say, "Tra-la." And 'tother day, poor Anne Looked long at me and said, "You say, 'Tra-la'

Sometimes when you're asleep; why do you so?"