The Return Last night, within our little town
The Dead came marching through;
In a long line, like living men,
Just as they used to do.
Only, so long a line it seemed
You'd think the Judgment Day
Had dawned, to see them slowly pass,
With faces turned one way.
They walked no longer foe and foe
But brother bound to brother;
Poor men, common men they walked
Friendly to one another.
Just as in life they might have done
Who stabbed and slew instead....
So quietly and evenly they walked
These million gentle dead.
Contents / Contents, p. 3
To —— | I | 1 | Was it for you the aching past alone
Lived, that on you might fall the shadow of it?
For you, for you kings climbed a ravished throne,
And all these menacing, quenched fires were lit.
Wars that have left no more than a grey trace,
Where are they? Scattered foam, blown dust — ah, me!
How have they found their way into your face?
The new day is not yours, you only see
A battle raging in a desert place,
And blood-stained warriors seeking Sanctuary. | | 2 | I cannot love you in the street; I met
You in the street once and turned my head away,
But I will meet you where the red sunset
With forlorn fire flashes the leaping spray.
We are too old, too old for all this noise,
No wine of such new vintage shall control
Us who have known, what passionate joys
Once in some far, dark City of the Soul.
We are kings still and have, as kings, the choice
To spurn the proffered half and claim the whole. | | 3 | Let us find out a new way; for it is plain
That all these old, worn, trodden roads suffice
Only those who will return again
Seeking shelter in their homes from Paradise.
Oh! let us find some solitary, green
Forgotten garden, where the sunrays fall
All blind and blurred and indistinct between
Cypresses lofty as earth's boundary wall;
Beneath whose shade shall glimmer forth half seen
Your face through the soft darkness when I call. | | II | 1 | If one, with visionary pen, should write
The love which might be ours, how would he call
These strange, perplexing fires veiled servants light
Down the dark vistas of our empty hall?
That love which might be ours, how would he name
That love? No bitter leaving of the brine,
No white or fading blossom twined like flame
Round any brow, Christian or Erycine,
Not all those loves blown to a windy fame
Shall find their counterpart in yours and mine. | | 2 | Not Tristram, not Isolde, wild shades which dip
Their pinions like blown gulls in a waste sea,
Nor those mute lovers, who still, lip on lip,
Float on for ever, though they have ceased to be,
Not any of those who loved once; — far apart
We wander; the years have made us weak, we fail
To rush together with a single heart,
And we shall meet at last, only as pale
Autumnal mists no sun's shaft cleaves apart
When all the winds are still and no ships sail. | | III | 1 | Yet we shall meet — it may be we shall meet
And count our days up-gathered, one by one,
Like poppies plucked among the burnished wheat,
Beneath the red gaze of the August sun;
And all our scattered dreams shall flutter home
At last. Oh! silent, age-long wandering
What since your setting forth have ye become?
What gift from those far waters do ye bring? —
A splash of rain, salt taste of frozen foam,
Green sea-weed trailing from a broken wing. | | 2 | Or we shall find each other — on the brink
Of sleep some day, when the cool evening airs
Blow bubbles round the pool where wood-birds drink;
Or in the common Inn of wayfarers:
Both weary, both beside the wide fireplace
Drowsing, till at some sudden spark up-blown
Shall each awake to find there face to face
You and I very tired and alone;
And lo! your welcome from my eyes shall gaze
And in your eyes there shall I find my own. | | 3 | I will pursue thee down these solitudes
Therefore, and thou shalt yet escape me not.
I will set traps for thee of subtle moods
And wound thee with the arrows of my thought.
In thickest forest ways though thou lie hid,
Or in some autumn vale of Brocelinde,
Or in whatever place of magic forbid,
I will pierce through the woven branches like a wind,
And drag thee from thy hiding-place amid
The secret laughter of the fairy-kind. | | 4 | Oh, triumph still delaying! I must pass
Lonely a long time yet, for I know well
No fugitive fair dream that ever was
Left anywhere traces where her footprints fell.
I, lonely hunter in the woods of sleep.
The hunt is up — away! I ride, I ride
On a white steed, where black-boughed fir-trees keep
Watch and the kindly world is shut outside.
I am afraid, the haunted woods are deep!
I am afraid — afraid! Where dost thou hide? | silhouetted figures 11 Contents / Contents, p. 3
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