EVENING SONG When all the weary flowers,
Worn out with sunlit hours,
Droop o’er the garden beds
Their little sleepy heads,
The dewy dusk on quiet wings comes stealing;
And, as the night descends,
The shadows troop like friends
To bring them healing.
So, weary of the light
Of life too full and bright,
We long for night to fall
To wrap us from it all;
Then death on dewy wings draws near and holds us,
And like a kind friend come
To children far from home,
With love enfolds us.
But when the night is done,
Fresh to the morning sun,
Their little faces yet
With night’s sweet dewdrops wet,
The flowers awake to the new day’s new graces;
And we, ah! shall we too
Turn to the daydawn new
Our tear-wet faces?
“THIS DESIRABLE MANSION” The long white windows blankly stare
Across the sodden, tangled grass,
Weed-covered are the pathways where
No footsteps ever pass;
No whispers wake, no kisses die,
No laughter thrills the dwindling flowers,
Only the night hears sigh on sigh
From ghosts of long-dead hours.
None come here now to laugh or weep;
The spider spins on stair and hall,
And round the windows shadows creep,
And loathly creatures crawl.
Cold is the hearth; the door is fast;
No guest the silent threshold sees
Save ghosts out of the happy past,—
And one who is as these.
EBB-TIDE Now the vexed clouds, wind-driven, spread wings of white,
Long leaning wings across the sea and land.
The waves creep back bequeathing to our sight
The treasure-house of their deserted sand,
And where the nearer waves curl white and low,
Knee-deep in swirling brine the slow-foot shrimpers go.
Pale breadth of sand, where clamorous gulls confer,
Marked with broad arrows by their planted feet;
White rippled pools, where late deep waters were
And ever the white waves marshalled in retreat
And the grey wind in sole supremacy
O’er opal and amber cold of darkening sky and sea.
ON THE DOWNS The little moon is dead,
Drowned in the flood of rain
That drips from roof of byre and shed,
And splashes in the lane:
The leafless lean-flanked lane where last year’s leaves are spread.
The sheep cower in the fold,
Where the rain beats them blind,
Where scarce the rotten hurdles hold
Against the weary wind
That moans with angry tears across the pathless wold.
Dim lights across the down
Show where the lone farms lie,
The twisted trees have lost their brown,
Are black against the sky,
And far below blink lights, gay lights of Brighton town.
Ah, was the moon once bright?
And did the thyme smell sweet
Where, between dewy dusk and light,
The warm turf felt our feet,
And bean-flowers scented all the enchanted summer night?
Did sheep-bells tinkle clear
Across the golden haze?
Were the woods ever leafy-dear,
In those forgotten days?
The wet wind shrieks denial: no other voice speaks here.
NEW COLLEGE GARDENS, OXFORD On this old lawn, where lost hours pass
Across the shadows dark with dew,
Where autumn on the thick sweet grass
Has laid a weary leaf or two,
When the young morning, keenly sweet,
Breathes secrets to the silent air,
Happy is he whose lingering feet
May wander lonely there.
The enchantment of the dreaming limes,
The magic of the quiet hours,
Breathe unheard tales of other times
And other destinies than ours;
The feet that long ago walked here
Still, noiseless, walk beside our feet,
Poor ghosts, who found this garden dear,
And found the morning sweet!
Age weeps that it no more may hold
The heart-ache that youth clasps so close,
Pain finely shaped in pleasure’s mould,
A thorn deep hidden in a rose.
Here is the immortal thorny rose
That may in no new garden grow—
Its root is in the hearts of those
Who walked here long ago.
TO A TULIP-BULB Sleep first,
And let the storm and winter do their worst;
Let all the garden lie
Bare to the angry sky,
The shed leaves shiver and die
Above your bed;
Let the white coverlet
Of sunlit snow be set
Over your sleeping head,
While in the earth you sleep
Where dreams are dear and deep,
And heed nor wind nor snow,
Nor how the dark moons go.
In this sad upper world where Winter’s hand
Has bound with chains of ice the weary land.
Then wake
To see the whole world lovely for Spring’s sake;
The garden fresh and fair
With green things everywhere,
And winter’s want and care
Banished and fled;
Primrose and violet
In every border set,
With rain and sunshine fed.
Then bless the fairy song
That cradled you so long,
And bless the fairy kiss
That wakened you to this—
A world where Winter’s dead and Spring doth reign
And lovers whisper in the budding lane.
FEBRUARY The trees stand brown against the gray,
The shivering gray of field and sky;
The mists wrapt round the dying day
The shroud poor days wear as they die:
Poor day, die soon, who lived in vain,
Who could not bring my Love again!
Down in the garden breezes cold
Dead rustling stalks blow chill between;
Only, above the sodden mould,
The wallflower wears his heartless green
As though still reigned the rose-crowned year
And summer and my Love were here.
The mists creep close about the house,
The empty house, all still and chill;
The desolate and trembling boughs
Scratch at the dripping window sill:
Poor day lies drowned in floods of rain,
And ghosts knock at the window pane.
THE PROMISE OF SPRING
MEDWAY SONG
(Air: Carnaval de Venise) Let Housman sing of Severn shore,
Of Thames let Arnold sing,
But we will sing no river more
Save this where crowbars ring.
Let others sing of Henley,
Of fashion and renown,
But we will sing the thirteen locks
That lead to Tonbridge town!
Then sing the Kentish river,
The Kentish fields and flowers,
We waste no dreams on other streams
Who call the Medway ours.
When on the level golden meads
The evening sunshine lies,
The little voles among the reeds
Look out with wondering eyes.
The patient anglers linger
The placid stream beside,
Where still with towering tarry prow
The stately barges glide.
Then sing the Kentish river,
The Kentish fields and flowers,
We waste no dreams on other streams
Who call the Medway ours.
On Medway banks the May droops white,
The wild rose blossoms fair,
O’er meadow-sweet and loosestrife bright,
For water nymphs to wear.
And mid the blowing rushes
Pan pipes a joyous song,
And woodland things peep from the shade
As soft we glide along.
Then sing the Kentish river,
The Kentish fields and flowers,
We waste no dreams on other streams
Who call the Medway ours.
You see no freight on Medway boats
Of fashions fine and rare,
But happy men in shabby coats,
And girls with wind-kissed hair.
The world’s a pain forgotten,
And very far away,
The stream that flows, the boat that goes—
These are our world to-day.
Then sing the Kentish river,
The Kentish fields and flowers,
We waste no dreams on other streams
Who call the Medway ours.
CHAINS INVISIBLE The lilies in my garden grow,
Wide meadows ring my garden round,
In that green copse wild violets blow,
And pale, frail cuckoo flowers are found.
For all you see and all you hear,
The city might be miles away,
And yet you feel the city near
Through all the quiet of the day.
Sweet smells the earth—wet with sweet rain—
Sweet lilac waves in moonlight pale,
And from the wood beyond the lane
I hear the hidden nightingale.
Though field and wood about me lie,
Hushed soft in dew and deep delight,
Yet can I hear the city’s sigh
Through all the silence of the night.
For me the skylark builds and sings,
For me the vine her garland weaves;
The swallow folds her glossy wings
To build beneath my cottage eaves.
But I can feel the giant near,
Can hear his slaves by daylight weep,
And, when at last the night is here,
I hear him moaning in his sleep.
Oh! for a little space of ground,
Though not a flower should make it gay,
Where miles of meadows wrapped me round,
And leagues and leagues of silence lay.
Oh! for a wind-lashed, treeless down,
A black night and a rising sea,
And never a thought of London town,
To steal the world’s delight from me.
AT EVENING TIME THERE SHALL BE LIGHT The day was wild with wind and rain,
One grey wrapped sky and sea and shore,
It seemed our marsh would never again
Wear the rich robes that once it wore.
The scattered farms looked sad and chill,
Their sheltering trees writhed all awry,
And waves of mist broke on the hill
Where once the great sea thundered by.
Then God remembered this His land,
This little land that is our own,
He caught the rain up in His hand,
He hid the winds behind His throne,
He soothed the fretful waves to rest,
He called the clouds to come away,
And, by blue pathways, to the west,
They went, like children tired of play.
And then God bade our marsh put on
Its holy vestment of fine gold;
From marge to marge the glory shone
On lichened farm and fence and fold;
In the gold sky that walled the west,
In each transfigured stone and tree,
The glory of God was manifest,
Plain for a little child to see!
MAIDENHOOD Through her fair world of blossoms fresh and bright,
Veiled with her maiden innocence, she goes;
Not all the splendour of the waxing light
She sees, nor all the colour of the rose;
And yet who knows what finer hues she sees,
Hid by our wisdom from our longing eyes?
Who knows what light she sees in skies and seas
Which is withholden from our seas and skies?
Shod with her youth the thorny paths she treads
And feels not yet the treachery of the thorn,
Her crown of lilies still its perfume sheds
Where Love, the thorny crown, not yet is borne.
Yet in the mystery of her peaceful way
Who knows what fears beset her innocence,
Who, trembling, learns that thorns will wound some day,
And wonders what thorns are, and why, and whence?
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