Upon the hollow stream whose bed Is channelled by the foamless years; Between the bud and the blown flower And long ere these made up their sheaf Then he stood up, and trod to dust And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet, And what things may be, in the heat And alter; and his spirit's meat 10 And doubt they had better not been born, He builds not half of doubts and half 60 Whence hopes and fears with helpless eyes, The living spring in man that lies, On its plain pasture's heat and cold "Yet between death and life are hours Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought. 30 To flush with love and hide in flowers; What profit save in these?'' men cry: 70 80 More heart to play and grow more glad?" 90 Play then and sing; we too have played, We too have twisted through our hair And smote the summer with strange air, And disengirdled and discrowned 99 The limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound. We too have tracked by star-proof trees The tempest of the Thyiades1 Scare the loud night on hills that hid 50 But the fierce flute whose notes acclaim Cymbal and clamorous kettledrum, Timbrels and tabrets, all are dumb That turned the high chill air to flame; The singing tongues of fire are numb That called on Cotys2 by her name Edonian, till they felt her come And maddened, and her mystic face Lightened along the streams of Thrace. For Pleasure slumberless and pale, And Passion with rejected veil, Pass, and the tempest-footed throng Of hours that follow them with song Till their feet flag and voices fail, And lips that were so loud so long Learn silence, or a wearier wail; So keen is change, and time so strong, To weave the robes of life and rend And weave again till life have end. But weak is change, but strengthless time, To take the light from heaven, or climb With girdled loins our lamplit race,3 And each from each takes heart of grace And spirit till his turn be done, And light of face from each man's face In whom the light of trust is one; Since only souls that keep their place By their own light, and watch things roll, And stand, have light for any soul. 120 A little time we gain from time 130 The hills of heaven with wasting feet. Songs they can stop that earth found meet, But the stars keep their ageless rhyme; Flowers they can slay that spring thought sweet, But the stars keep their spring sublime; Passions and pleasures can defeat, Actions and agonies control, And life and death, but not the soul. Because man's soul is man's God still, Across the waves of day and night And still its flame at mainmast height Save his own soul's light overhead, None leads him, and none ever led, Save his own soul he hath no star, No blast of air or fire of sun Puts out the light whereby we run 140 150 160 2 An Edonian. or Thracian, divinity, worshiped with licentious revelry. And had their chance of seed to sow For service or disservice done To those days dead and this their son. A little time that we may fill There are who rest not; who think long Till they discern as from a hill At the sun's hour of morning song, Known of souls only, and those souls free, The sacred spaces of the sea. 170 180 190 Such grace befell not ever man on earth Of God nor man was ever this thing said: 20 Life back to her who gave him, whence his dead Mother might live. Is she a queen, having great gifts to give? -Yea, these: that whoso hath seen her shall not live Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain, Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears; And when she bids die he shall surely die. But this man found his mother dead and slain, And he shall leave all things under the sky, With fast-sealed eyes, And bade the dead rise up and live again, And she did rise: And go forth naked under sun and rain, -Hath she on earth no place of habitation? For if she be not in the spirit of men, For if in the inward soul she hath no place, Life and the clouds are vanished; hate and fear In vain their mouths make much of her; for Have had their span But highest of all that heaven and earth be--And ye shall die before your thrones be won. -Yea, and the changed world and the liberal hold, But somewhat in it of our blood once shed Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh 48 Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless; 80 But man to man, nation would turn to nation, And the old life live, and the old great word be great. -Pass on, then, and pass by us, and let us be, -But ye that might be clothed with all things For what light think ye after life to see? pleasant, Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present, That clothe yourselves with the cold future air; And if the world fare better will ye know? And if man triumph who shall seek you and say? -Enough of light is this for one life's span, When mother and father, and tender sister That all men born are mortal, but not man; And the old live love that was shall be as ye, Than sister or wife or father unto us or 56 A FORSAKEN GARDEN 88 In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The steep square slope of the blossomless bed Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses Even this your dream, that by much tribulation bowed necks straight? -Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless, not; As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry; From the thicket of thorns whence the nightin Here death may deal not again forever; Here change may come not till all change end. gale calls not, Could she call, there were never a rose to reply. Over the meadows that blossom and wither, Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song. The sun burns sere, and the rain dishevels From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, Who have left naught living to ravage and rend. 32 Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath. Only the wind here hovers and revels In a round where life seems barren as death. Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping, Haply, of lovers none ever will know, Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping Years ago. 40 Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble, Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink, Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look Till the strength of the waves of the high tides thither," Did he whisper? "Look forth from the flowers to the sea; For the foam-flowers endure when the rose blossoms wither, humble The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink, Here now in his triumph where all things falter, Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, And men that love lightly may die-But As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, we?" What love was ever as deep as a grave? They are loveless now as the grass above them Or the wave. 56 Death lies dead. A BALLAD OF DREAMLAND 80 Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred? All are at one now, roses and lovers, sea. Not a breath of the time that has been hovers Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now 16 The green land's name that a charm encloses, When, as they that are free now of weeping And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard; No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart, and laughter, We shall sleep. 64 Only the song of a secret bird. 24 |