A Spring Harvest :: II. First Poems

II. First Poems

Rime

O scholar grey, with quiet eyes,
Reading the charactered pages, bright
With one tall candle’s flickering light,
In a turret chamber under the skies;
O scholar, learned in gramarye,
Have you seen the manifold things I see?

Have you seen the forms of tracÈd towers
Whence clamorous voices challenge the hours:
Gaunt tree-branches, pitchy black
Against the long, wind-driven wrack
Of scurrying, shuddering clouds, that race
Ever across the pale moon’s face?

Have you heard the tramp of hurrying feet.
There beneath, in the shadowy street,
Have you heard sharp cries, and seen the flame
Of silvery steel, in a perilous game,
A perilous game for men to play,
Hid from the searching eyes of day?

Have you heard the great awakening breath,
Like trump that summons the saints from death,
Of the wild, majestical wind, which blows
Loud and splendid, that each man knows
Far, O far away is the sea,
Breaking, murmuring, stark and free?

[pg 25]

All these things I hear and see,
I, a scholar of gramarye:
All are writ in the ancient books
Clear, exactly, and he that looks
Finds the night and the changing sea,
The years gone by, and the years to be:
(He that searches, with tireless eyes
In a turret-chamber under the skies)
Passion and joy, and sorrow and laughter,
Life and death, and the things thereafter.

[pg 26]

To an Elzevir Cicero

Dust-covered book, that very few men know,
Even as very few men understand
The glory of an ancient, storied land
In the wild current of the ages’ flow,
Have not old scholars, centuries ago
Caressed you in the hollow of their hand,
The while with quiet, kindly eyes they scanned
Your pages, yellowed now, then white as snow?

A voice there is, cries through your every word,
Of him, that after greatest glory came
Down the grey road to darkness and to tears;
A voice like far seas in still valleys heard,
Crying of love and death and hope and fame
That change not with the changing of the years.

[pg 27]

To a DÜrer Drawing of Antwerp Harbour

Figured by DÜrer’s magic hand wast thou,
That, lightning-like, traced on the lucid page
Rough, careless lines, with wizardry so sage
That yet the whole was fair, I know not how:
Ships of gaunt masts, and stark, sea-smitten prow,
Idle, yet soon again to sweep the main
In the swift service of old merchants’ gain,
Where are ye now, alas, where are ye now?
Gone are ye all, and vanished very long,
Sunk with great glory in the storied wars,
Or conquered by the leaping breakers wild:
And yet we love your image, like some song
That tells of ancient days and high, because
Old DÜrer looked upon you once and smiled.

[pg 28]

Pure Virginia

York River Returns

Like smoke that vanishes on the morning breeze
Are passed the first beginnings of the world,
When time was even as a bud still curled,
And scarce the limit set of lands and seas;
Like smoke, like smoke the composite auguries
Of Hebrew and of Hellene are all furled,
Fulfilled or else forgot, and idly hurled
This way or that way, as the great winds please:
Aye, and like smoke of this delicious herb
Brought by strange ways the curious mind may guess,
From where the parrot and the leopard be,
My thoughts, that should be strong, the years to curb
Go up, and vanish into nothingness
On a blue cloud of exquisite fragrancy.

[pg 29]

A Preface for a Tale I have never told

Herein is nought of windy citadels
Where proud kings dwell, that with an iron hand
Deal war or justice: here no history
Of valiant ships upon the wine-dark seas
Passing strange lands and threading channels strait
Between embalmed islands: here no song
That men shall sing in battle and remember
When they are old and grey beside the fire:
Only a story gathered from the hills
And the wind crying of forgotten days,
A story that shall whisper, “All things change—
For friends do grow indifferent, and loves
Die like a dream at morning: bitterness
Is the sure heritage of all men born,
And he alone sees truly, who looks out
From some huge aery peak, considering not
Fast-walled cities, or the works of men,
But turns his gaze unto the mountain-tops
And the unfathomable blue of heaven
That only change not with the changing years”——
A tale that shod itself with ancient shoon
And wrapped its cloak, and wandered from the west.

[pg 30]

A Sonnet

There is a wind that takes the heart of a man,
A fresh wind in the latter days of spring,
When hate and war and every evil thing
That the wide arches of high Heaven span
Seems dust, and less to be accounted than
The omened touches of a passing wing:
When Destiny, that calls himself a king,
Goes all forgotten for the song of Pan:
For why? Because the twittering of birds
Is the best music that was ever sung,
Because the voice of trees finds better words
Than ever poet from his heartstrings wrung:
Because all wisdom and all gramarye
Are writ in fields, O very plain to see.

[pg 31]

“It was all in the Black Countree”

It was all in the Black Countree,
What time the sweet o’ the year should be,
I saw a tree, all gaunt and grey,
As mindful of a winter’s day:
And that a lonely bird did sit
Upon the topmost branch of it,
Who to my thought did sweeter sing
Than any minstrel of a king.

[pg 32]

To a Pianist

When others’ fingers touch the keys
Then most doleful threnodies
Chase about the air, and run
Like PandÆmonium begun.
Rhythm strained and false accord
In a ceaseless stream are poured;
Then sighs are heard, and men depart
To seek the sage physician’s art,
Or silence, and a little ease,
When others’ fingers touch the keys.

When your fingers touch the keys
Hark, soft sounds of summer seas
In a melody most fair
Whisper through the pleasant air,
Or a winding mountain stream
Glitters to the pale moonbeam,
Or a breeze doth stir the tops
Of springtime larches in a copse,
Or the winds are loosed and hurled
About the wonder-stricken world
With immortal harmonies,
When your fingers touch the keys.

[pg 33]

A Fragment

————

And some came down in a great wind
Under grey scurrying skies
To where the long wave-beaten shore
For ever shrieks and cries.

O, fling aside your toil, your care,
When one cries of the sea,
And the great waves that foam and toss,
And the white clouds that flee:
Let us forget our weariness,
Forget that we have sinned,
So we but sail, what matters it
If Death ride on the wind?

Storm from the sky, storm from the sea
Beat on them as they stood,
And a great longing sprang in them
To cross the roaring flood....

[pg 34]

Sea Poppies

’Twixt lonely lands and desert beach,
Where no wind blows and no waves reach,
A sunken precinct here we keep,
With woven wiles of endless sleep;
Our twisted stems of sere-hued green,
Our pallid blooms what sun has seen?
And he that tastes our magic breath
Shall sleep that sleep whose name is death.

Wild clouds are scurrying overhead,
The wild wind’s voice is loud and dread,
Sounding the knell of the dying day,
Yet here is silence and gloom alway.
And a great longing seizes me
To burst my bondage and be free,
To look on winds’ and waters’ strife,
And breathe in my nostrils the breath of life.
Give me not dim and slumbrous ease,
But sounding storm and labouring seas,
Not peaceful and untroubled years,
But toil and warfare and passion and tears.
And I would fall in valorous fight,
And lie on lofty far-seen height.

Yet how to burst these prison-bands,

Forged by unseen spirit-hands?

O seek not to burst our prison bands
Forged by unseen spirit-hands.
Clashing battle and labouring sea,
These be for others, not for thee.
Thou lover of storm and passion and war
Break’st our charmed circle never more.

[pg 35]

“O, sing me a Song of the Wild West Wind”

O, sing me a song of the wild west wind,
And his great sea-harrying flail,
Of hardy mariners, copper skinned,
That fly with a bursting sail.
They see the clouds of crispÈd white
That shadow the distant hills,
And filled are they with a strange delight
As shaking away old ills.

O, give me a boat that is sure and stark,
And swift as a slinger’s stone,
With a sail of canvas bronzÈd dark,
And I will go out alone:
Nor fear nor sorrow my soul shall keep
When around me lies the sea,
And I will return with the night, and sleep
In the wind’s wild harmony.

[pg 36]

Ære Perennius

Written on Commemoration Sunday, Corpus Christi College, Oxford

We praise, we praise the immortal dead,
Who strove beneath unheeding skies
For truth that raised the drooping head,
For light that gladdened weary eyes:

The martyr’s cross, the warrior’s sword,
How should they be of lesser worth
Than some unprofitable hoard
In ancient mines below the earth?

The song that one alone has sung,
The great uncompromising page,
Are these but glittering baubles, flung
About the world from age to age?

But ruin’d columns, wondrous tall,
Built in old time with labour sore,
The mighty deeds done once for all,
The voice heard once, and heard no more?

Rather they shine as doth the star
About the close of winter’s day,
That cheers the traveller afar
And draws him on, and points the way.

————

We praise, we praise the immortal dead.
Do they not verily wait till we
Of the spoilt years unharvested
Be also of their company?

[pg 37]

The Old Kings

Far away from sunny rills,
Far away from golden broom,
Far away from any town
Whither merchants travel down—
In a hollow of the hills
In impenetrable gloom
Sit the old forgotten kings
Unto whom no poet sings,
Unto whom none makes bequest,
Unto whom no kingdoms rest,——
Only wayward shreds of dreams,
And the sound of ancient streams,
And the shock of ancient strife
On the further shore of life.

————

When our days are done, shall we

Enter their pale company?

[pg 38]

“O there be Kings whose Treasuries”

O there be kings whose treasuries
Are rich with pearls and gold
And silks and bales of cramasy
And spices manifold:
Gardens they have with marble stairs
And streams than life more fair,
With roses set and lavender
That do enchant the air.

O there be many ships that sail
The sea-ways wide and blue,
And there be master-mariners
To sail them straight and true:
And there be many women fair
Who watch out anxiously,
And are enamoured of the day
Their dear ones come from sea:

But riches I can find enow
All in a barren land,
Where sombre lakes shine wondrously
With rocks on either hand:
And I can find enow of love
Up there, alone, alone,
With none beside me save the wind,
Nor speech except his moan.

For there far up among the hills
The great storms come and go
In a most proud processional
Of cloud and rain and snow:
There light and darkness only are
A changing benison
Of the old gods who wrought the world
And shaped the moon and sun.

[pg 39]

A Study

In chamber hung with white,

Lit by the dawning light,

Upon a slender bed

She lies, as she were dead:

Most carven-ivory fair,

And palely gold her hair.

Lo, the sun’s yellow ray,

That, with the rise of day,

Through quartered casement came

To wake her life’s pale flame.

[pg 40]

The Eremite

When the world is still in the hush of dawn,
And yet fast sleeping are hate and scorn,
From my grey lodging under the hill
I do go out, and wander at will.

Of nights when the riven clouds are hurled,
And strife and rancour possess the world,
I sit alone, with thoughts that are chill,
In my grey lodging under the hill.

[pg 41]

The House of Eld

Now the old winds are wild about the house,
And the old ghosts cry to me from the air
Of a far isle set in the western sea,
And of the evening sunlight lingering there.

Ah! I am bound here, bound and fettered,
The dark house crumbles, and the woods decay,
I was too fain of life, that bound me here;
Away, old long-loved ghosts, away, away!

[pg 42]

The South-west Wind

The south-west wind has blown his fill,
And vanished with departing day:
The air is warm, and very still,
And soft as silks of far Cathay.

This is a night when spirits stray.
Their wan limbs bear them where they will;
They wring their pallid hands alway,
Seeing the lights upon the hill.

[pg 43]

Schumann: Erstes Verlust

O, dreary fall the leaves,
The withered leaves;
Among the trees
Complains the breeze,
That still bereaves.

All silent lies the mere,
The silver mere,
In saddest wise
Reflecting skies
Forlorn and sere.

Would autumn had not claimed its own

And would the swallows had not flown.

Skies overcast!
Leaves falling fast!
And she has passed
And left the woodland strown,
The woodland strown,
The silver mere,
The dying year,
And me alone.

Skies overcast!
Leaves falling fast!
Does she that passed
Dream of the woodland strown,
The woodland strown,
The silver mere,
The dying year,
And me alone?

[pg 44]

“Dark Boughs against a Golden Sky”

Dark boughs against a golden sky,
And crying of the winter wind:
And sweet it is, for hope is high,
And sad it is, for we have sinned.

Perfect is nature’s every part
In sunny rest, or windy strife:
But never yet the perfect heart,
And never yet the perfect life!

Dark boughs against a golden sky,
And crying of the winter wind:
And in the cold earth we must lie,
What matter then if we have sinned?

For evermore and evermore
Shall the great river onward roll:
And ever winding streams and poor
Shall lose them in the mighty whole.

[pg 45]

“Wind of the Darkness”

Wind of the darkness, breathing round us,
Wind from the never-resting sea,
Lo, you have loosed the cords that bound us,
Lo, you have set our spirits free:

Free to take wings, like the sea-bird lonely
Beating hardily up the wind:
Fixed are his eyes on the waters only,
Never a glance for the land behind.

Wind of the darkness, breathing round us,
Wind from the never-resting sea.
Was it the old gods’ voice that found us
Here, where the bars of prison be?

From the far isle that neither knoweth
Change of season, nor time’s increase,
Where is plenty, and no man soweth:
Calling to strife that shall end in peace.

[pg 46]

Creator Spiritus

The wind that scatters dying leaves
And whirls them from the autumn tree
Is grateful to the ship that cleaves
With stately prow the scurrying sea.

Heedless about the world we play
Like children in a garden close:
A postern bars the outward way
And what’s beyond it no man knows:

For careless days, a life at will,
A little laughter, and some tears,
These are sufficiency to fill
The early, vain, untroubled years,

Till at the last the wind upheaves
His unimagined strength, and we
Are scattered far, like autumn leaves,
Or proudly sail, like ships at sea.

[pg 47]

Wind over the Sea

Only a grey sea, and a long grey shore,
And the grey heavens brooding over them.
Twilight of hopes and purposes forgot,
Twilight of ceaseless eld, and when was youth?
Is it not lonely here, beyond the years?

Out of the gathering darkness crashes a wind from the
ocean,
Rushing with league-long paces over the plain of the
waters,
Driving the clouds and the breakers before it in sudden
commotion.

Who are these on the wind, riders and riderless horses?
Riders the great ones that have been and are, and those
to come shall be:
These are the children of might, life’s champions and
history’s forces.

Might I but grasp at a bridle, and fear not to be trodden
under,
Swing myself into a saddle, and ride on greatly, exulting
On down the long straight road of the wind, a galloping
thunder!

Only a grey sea, and a long grey shore,
And the grey heavens brooding over them,
Twilight of hopes and purposes forgot,
Twilight of ceaseless eld, for when was youth?
Is it not lonely here, beyond the years?

[pg 48]

Songs on the Downs

1

This is the road the Romans made,
This track half lost in the green hills,
Or fading in a forest-glade
’Mid violets and daffodils.

The years have fallen like dead leaves,
Unwept, uncounted, and unstayed
(Such as the autumn tempest thieves),
Since first this road the Romans made.

2

A miser lives within this house,
His patron saint’s the gnawing mouse,
And there’s no peace upon his brows.

A many ancient trees and thin
Do fold the place their shade within,
And moan, as for remembered sin.

[pg 49]

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