Chapter II: Part I: April Twilights and Other Poems

“GRANDMITHER, THINK NOT I FORGET”

Grandmither, think not I forget, when I come back to town,
An’ wander the old ways again an’ tread them up an’ down.
I never smell the clover bloom, nor see the swallows pass,
Without I mind how good ye were unto a little lass.
I never hear the winter rain a-pelting all night through,
Without I think and mind me of how cold it falls on you.
And if I come not often to your bed beneath the thyme,
Mayhap ’t is that I’d change wi’ ye, and gie my bed for thine,
Would like to sleep in thine.

I never hear the summer winds among the roses blow,
Without I wonder why it was ye loved the lassie so.
Ye gave me cakes and lollipops and pretty toys a score,--
I never thought I should come back and ask ye now for more.
Grandmither, gie me your still, white hands, that lie upon your breast,
For mine do beat the dark all night and never find me rest;
They grope among the shadows an’ they beat the cold black air,
They go seekin’ in the darkness, an’ they never find him there,
An’ they never find him there.

Grandmither, gie me your sightless eyes, that I may never see
His own a-burnin’ full o’ love that must not shine for me.
Grandmither, gie me your peaceful lips, white as the kirkyard snow,
For mine be red wi’ burnin’ thirst, an’ he must never know.
Grandmither, gie me your clay-stopped ears, that I may never hear
My lad a-singin’ in the night when I am sick wi’ fear;
A-singin’ when the moonlight over a’ the land is white--
Aw God! I’ll up an’ go to him a-singin’ in the night,
A-callin’ in the night.

Grandmither, gie me your clay-cold heart that has forgot to ache,
For mine be fire within my breast and yet it cannot break.
It beats an’ throbs forever for the things that must not be,--
An’ can ye not let me creep in an’ rest awhile by ye?
A little lass afeard o’ dark slept by ye years agone--
Ah, she has found what night can hold ’twixt sunset an’ the dawn!
So when I plant the rose an’ rue above your grave for ye,
Ye’ll know it’s under rue an’ rose that I would like to be,
That I would like to be.

FIDES, SPES

Joy is come to the little
Everywhere;
Pink to the peach and pink to the apple,
White to the pear.
Stars are come to the dogwood,
Astral, pale;
Mists are pink on the red-bud,
Veil after veil.
Flutes for the feathery locusts,
Soft as spray;
Tongues of lovers for chestnuts, poplars,
Babbling May.
Yellow plumes for the willows’
Wind-blown hair;
Oak trees and sycamores only
Comfortless, bare.
Sore from steel and the watching,
Somber and old,
(Wooing robes for the beeches, larches,
Splashed with gold,
Breath of love from the lilacs,
Warm with noon,)
Great hearts cold when the little
Beat mad so soon.
What is their faith to bear it
Till it come,
Waiting with rain-cloud and swallow,
Frozen, dumb?

THE TAVERN

In the tavern of my heart
Many a one has sat before,
Drunk red wine and sung a stave,
And, departing, come no more.
When the night was cold without,
And the ravens croaked of storm,
They have sat them at my hearth,
Telling me my house was warm.

As the lute and cup went round,
They have rhymed me well in lay;--
When the hunt was on at morn,
Each, departing, went his way.
On the walls, in compliment,
Some would scrawl a verse or two,
Some have hung a willow branch,
Or a wreath of corn-flowers blue.

Ah! my friend, when thou dost go,
Leave no wreath of flowers for me;
Not pale daffodils nor rue,
Violets nor rosemary.
Spill the wine upon the lamps,
Tread the fire, and bar the door;
So despoil the wretched place,
None will come forevermore.

THE HAWTHORN TREE

Across the shimmering meadows--
Ah, when he came to me!
In the spring-time,
In the night-time,
In the starlight,
Beneath the hawthorn tree.

Up from the misty marsh-land--
Ah, when he climbed to me!
To my white bower,
To my sweet rest,
To my warm breast,
Beneath the hawthorn tree.

Ask of me what the birds sang,
High in the hawthorn tree;
What the breeze tells,
What the rose smells,
What the stars shine--
Not what he said to me!

THE POOR MINSTREL

_Does the darkness cradle thee
Than mine arms more tenderly?_
Do the angels God hath put
There to guard thy lonely sleep--
One at head and one at foot--
Watch more fond and constant keep?
When the black-bird sings in May,
And the spring is in the wood,
Would you never trudge the way
Over hill-tops, if you could?
Was my harp so hard a load
Even on the sunny morns
When the plumèd huntsmen rode
To the music of their horns?
Hath the love that lit the stars,
Fills the sea and moulds the flowers,
Whose completeness nothing mars,
Made forgot what once was ours?
Christ hath perfect rest to give--
Stillness and perpetual peace;
You, who found it hard to live,
Sleep and sleep, without surcease.

Christ hath stars to light thy porch,
Silence after fevered song;--
I had but a minstrel’s torch
And the way was wet and long.
Sleep. No more on winter nights,
Harping at some castle gate,
Thou must see the revel lights
Stream upon our cold estate.
Bitter was the bread of song
While you tarried in my tent,
And the jeering of the throng
Hurt you, as it came and went.
When you slept upon my breast
Grief had wed me long ago:
Christ hath his perpetual rest
For thy weariness. But oh!
When I sleep beside the road,
Thanking God thou liest not so,
Brother to the owl and toad,
Could’st thou, Dear, but let me know,
_Does the darkness cradle thee
Than mine arms more tenderly?_

ANTINOUS

With attributes of gods they sculptured him,
Hermes, Osiris, but were never wise
To lift the level, frowning brow of him
Or dull the mortal misery in his eyes,
The scornful weariness of every limb,
The dust-begotten doubt that never dies,
Antinous, beneath thy lids, though dim,
The curling smoke of altars rose to thee,
Conjuring thee to comfort and content.
An emperor sent his galleys wide and far
To seek thy healing for thee. Yea, and spent
Honour and treasure and red fruits of war
To lift thy heaviness, lest thou should’st mar
The head that was an empire’s glory, bent
A little, as the heavy poppies are.
Did the perfection of thy beauty pain
Thy limbs to bear it? Did it ache to be,
As song hath ached in men, or passion vain?
Or lay it like some heavy robe on thee?
Was thy sick soul drawn from thee like the rain,
Or drunk up as the dead are drunk each hour
To feed the colour of some tulip flower?

LONDON ROSES

“Rowses, Rowses! Penny a bunch!” they tell you--
Slattern girls in Trafalgar, eager to sell you.
Roses, roses, red in the Kensington sun,
Holland Road, High Street, Bayswater, see you and smell you--
Roses of London town, red till the summer is done.

Roses, roses, locust and lilac, perfuming
West End, East End, wondrously budding and blooming
Out of the black earth, rubbed in a million hands,
Foot-trod, sweat-sour over and under, entombing
Highways of darkness, deep gutted with iron bands.

“Rowses, rowses! Penny a bunch!” they tell you,
Ruddy blooms of corruption, see you and smell you,
Born of stale earth, fallowed with squalor and tears--
North shire, south shire, none are like these, I tell you,
Roses of London perfumed with a thousand years.

WINTER AT DELPHI

Cold are the stars of the night,
Wild is the tempest crying,
Fast through the velvet dark
Little white flakes are flying.
Still is the House of Song.
But the fire on the hearth is burning;
And the lamps are trimmed, and the cup
Is full for his day of returning.
His watchers are fallen asleep,
They wait but his call to follow,
Ay, to the ends of the earth--
But Apollo, the god, Apollo?

Sick is the heart in my breast,
Mine eyes are blinded with weeping;
The god who never comes back,
The watch that forever is keeping.
Service of gods is hard;
Deep lies the snow on my pillow.
For him the laurel and song,
Weeping for me and the willow:
Empty my arms and cold
As the nest forgot of the swallow;
Birds will come back with the spring,--
But Apollo, the god, Apollo?

Hope will come back with the spring,
Joy with the lark’s returning;
Love must awake betimes,
When crocus buds are a-burning.
Hawthorns will follow the snow,
The robin his tryst be keeping;
Winds will blow in the May,
Waking the pulses a-sleeping.
Snowdrops will whiten the hills,
Violets hide in the hollow:
Pan will be drunken and rage--
But Apollo, the god, Apollo?

PARADOX

I knew them both upon Miranda’s isle,
Which is of youth a sea-bound seigniory:
Misshapen Caliban, so seeming vile,
And Ariel, proud prince of minstrelsy,
Who did forsake the sunset for my tower
And like a star above my slumber burned.
The night was held in silver chains by power
Of melody, in which all longings yearned--
Star-grasping youth in one wild strain expressed,
Tender as dawn, insistent as the tide;
The heart of night and summer stood confessed.
I rose aglow and flung the lattice wide--
Ah, jest of art, what mockery and pang!
Alack, it was poor Caliban who sang.

IN MEDIA VITA

Streams of the spring a-singing,
Winds of the May that blow,
Birds from the Southland winging,
Buds in the grasses below.
Clouds that speed hurrying over,
And the climbing rose by the wall,
Singing of bees in the clover,
And the dead, under all!

Lads and their sweethearts lying
In the cleft of the windy hill;
Hearts that are hushed of their sighing,
Lips that are tender and still.
Stars in the purple gloaming,
Flowers that suffuse and fall,
Twitter of bird-mates homing,
And the dead, under all!

Herdsman abroad with his collie,
Girls on their way to the fair,
Young lads a-chasing their folly,
Parsons a-praying their prayer.
Children their kites a-flying,
Grandsires that nod by the wall,
Mothers soft lullabies sighing,
And the dead, under all!

EVENING SONG

Dear love, what thing of all the things that be
Is ever worth one thought from you or me,
Save only Love,
Save only Love?

The days so short, the nights so quick to flee,
The world so wide, so deep and dark the sea,
So dark the sea;

So far the suns and every listless star,
Beyond their light--Ah! dear, who knows how far,
Who knows how far?

One thing of all dim things I know is true,
The heart within me knows, and tells it you,
And tells it you.

So blind is life, so long at last is sleep,
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep,
And none but Love,
And none but Love.

LAMENT FOR MARSYAS

Marsyas sleeps. Oh, never wait,
Maidens, by the city gate,
Till he come to plunder gold
Of the daffodils you hold,
Or your branches white with may;
He is whiter gone than they.
He will startle you no more
When along the river shore
Damsels beat the linen clean.
Nor when maidens play at ball
Will he catch it where it fall:
Though ye wait for him and call,
He will answer not, I ween.

Happy Earth to hold him so,
Still and satisfied and low,
Giving him his will--ah, more
Than a woman could before!
Still forever holding up
To his parted lips the cup
Which hath eased him, when to bless
All who loved were powerless.
Ah! for that too-lovely head,
Low among the laureled dead,
Many a rose earth oweth yet;
Many a yellow jonquil brim,
Many a hyacinth dewy-dim,
For the singing breath of him--
Sweeter than the violet.

“I SOUGHT THE WOOD IN WINTER”

I sought the wood in summer
When every twig was green;
The rudest boughs were tender,
And buds were pink between.
Light-fingered aspens trembled
In fitful sun and shade,
And daffodils were golden
In every starry glade.
The brook sang like a robin--
My hand could check him where
The lissome maiden willows
Shook out their yellow hair.

“How frail a thing is Beauty,”
I said, “when every breath
She gives the vagrant summer
But swifter woos her death.
For this the star dust troubles,
For this have ages rolled:
To deck the wood for bridal
And slay her with the cold.”

I sought the wood in winter
When every leaf was dead;
Behind the wind-whipped branches
The winter sun set red.
The coldest star was rising
To greet that bitter air,
The oaks were writhen giants;
Nor bud nor bloom was there.
The birches, white and slender,
In deathless marble stood,
The brook, a white immortal,
Slept silent in the wood.

“How sure a thing is Beauty,”
I cried. “No bolt can slay,
No wave nor shock despoil her,
No ravishers dismay.
Her warriors are the angels
That cherish from afar,
Her warders people Heaven
And watch from every star.
The granite hills are slighter,
The sea more like to fail;
Behind the rose the planet,
The Law behind the veil.”

“SLEEP, MINSTREL, SLEEP”

Sleep, minstrel, sleep; the winter wind’s awake,
And yellow April’s buried deep and cold.
The wood is black, and songful things forsake
The haunted forest when the year is old.
Above the drifted snow the aspens quake,
The scourging clouds a shrunken moon enfold,
Denying all that nights of summer spake
And swearing false the summer’s globe of gold.

Sleep, minstrel, sleep; in such a bitter night
Thine azure song would seek the stars in vain;
Thy rose and roundelay the winter’s spite
Would scarcely spare--O never wake again!
These leaden skies do not thy masques invite,
Thy sunny breath would warm not their disdain;
How should’st thou sing to boughs with winter dight,
Or gather marigolds in winter rain?

Sleep, minstrel, sleep; we do not grow more kind;
Your cloak was thin, your wound was wet and deep;
More bitter breath there was than winter wind,
And hotter tears than now thy lovers weep.
Upon the world-old breast of comfort find
How gentle Darkness thee will gently keep.
Thou wert the summer’s, and thy joy declined
When winter winds awoke. Sleep, minstrel, sleep.

IN ROSE-TIME

_Oh, this is the joy of the rose:
That it blows,
And goes._

Winter lasts a five-month,
Spring-time stays but one;
Yellow blow the rye-fields
When the rose is done.
Pines are clad at Yuletide
When the birch is bare,
And the holly’s greenest
In the frosty air.

Sorrow keeps a stone house
Builded grim and gray;
Pleasure hath a straw thatch
Hung with lanterns gay.
On her petty savings
Niggard Prudence thrives,
Passion, ere the moonset,
Bleeds a thousand lives.

Virtue hath a warm hearth--
Folly’s dead and drowned;
Friendship hath her own when
Love is underground.
Ah! for me the madness
Of the spendthrift flower,
Burning myriad sunsets
In a single hour.

_For this is the joy of the rose:
That it blows,
And goes._

POPPIES ON LUDLOW CASTLE

Through halls of vanished pleasure,
And hold of vanished power,
And crypt of faith forgotten,
I came to Ludlow tower.

A-top of arch and stairway,
Of crypt, and donjon cell,
Of council hall, and chamber,
Of wall, and ditch, and well,

High over grated turrets
Where clinging ivies run,
A thousand scarlet poppies
Enticed the rising sun,

Upon the topmost turret,
With death and damp below,--
Three hundred years of spoilage,--
The crimson poppies grow.

This hall it was that bred him,
These hills that knew him brave,
The gentlest English singer
That fills an English grave.

How have they heart to blossom
So cruel gay and red,
When beauty so hath perished
And valour so hath sped?

When knights so fair are rotten,
And captains true asleep,
And singing lips are dust-stopped
Six English earth-feet deep?

When ages old remind me
How much hath gone for naught,
What wretched ghost remaineth
Of all that flesh hath wrought;

Of love and song and warring,
Of adventure and play,
Of art and comely building,
Of faith and form and fray--

I’ll mind the flowers of pleasure,
Of short-lived youth and sleep,
That drank the sunny weather
A-top of Ludlow keep.

PRAIRIE DAWN

A crimson fire that vanquishes the stars;
A pungent odor from the dusty sage;
A sudden stirring of the huddled herds;
A breaking of the distant table-lands
Through purple mists ascending, and the flare
Of water-ditches silver in the light;
A swift, bright lance hurled low across the world;
A sudden sickness for the hills of home.

AFTERMATH

Canst thou conjure a vanished morn of spring,
Or bid the ashes of the sunset glow
Again to redness? Are we strong to wring
From trodden grapes the juice drunk long ago?
Can leafy longings stir in autumn’s blood,
Or can I wear a pearl dissolved in wine,
Or go a-Maying in a winter wood,
Or paint with youth thy wasted cheek, or mine?
What bloom, then, shall abide, since ours hath sped?
Thou art more lost to me than they who dwell
In Egypt’s sepulchres, long ages fled;
And would I touch--Ah me! I might as well
Covet the gold of Helen’s vanished head,
Or kiss back Cleopatra from the dead!

THOU ART THE PEARL

I read of knights who laid their armour down,
And left the tourney’s prize for other hands,
And clad them in a pilgrim’s sober gown,
To seek a holy cup in desert lands.
For them no more the torch of victory;
For them lone vigils and the starlight pale,
So they in dreams the Blessed Cup may see--
Thou art the Grail!

An Eastern king once smelled a rose in sleep,
And on the morrow laid his scepter down.
His heir his titles and his lands might keep,--
The rose was sweeter wearing than the crown.
Nor cared he that its life was but an hour,
A breath that from the crimson summer blows,
Who gladly paid a kingdom for a flower--
Thou art the Rose!

A merchant man, who knew the worth of things,
Beheld a pearl more priceless than a star;
And straight returning, all he hath he brings
And goes upon his way, ah, richer far!
Laughter of merchants in the market-place,
Nor taunting gibe nor scornful lips that curl,
Can ever cloud the rapture on his face--
Thou art the Pearl!

ARCADIAN WINTER

Woe is me to tell it thee,
Winter winds in Arcady!
Scattered is thy flock and fled
From the glades where once it fed,
And the snow lies drifted white
In the bower of our delight,
Where the beech threw gracious shade
On the cheek of boy and maid:
And the bitter blasts make roar
Through the fleshless sycamore.

White enchantment holds the spring,
Where thou once wert wont to sing,
And the cold hath cut to death
Reeds melodious of thy breath.
He, the rival of thy lyre,
Nightingale with note of fire,
Sings no more; but far away,
From the windy hill-side gray,
Calls the broken note forlorn
Of an aged shepherd’s horn.

Still about the fire they tell
How it long ago befell
That a shepherd maid and lad
Met and trembled and were glad;
When the swift spring waters ran,
And the wind to boy or man
Brought the aching of his sires--
Song and love and all desires.
Ere the starry dogwoods fell
They were lovers, so they tell.

Woe is me to tell it thee,
Winter winds in Arcady!
Broken pipes and vows forgot,
Scattered flocks returning not,
Frozen brook and drifted hill,
Ashen sun and song-birds still;
Songs of summer and desire
Crooned about the winter fire;
Shepherd lads with silver hair,
Shepherd maids no longer fair.

PROVENÇAL LEGEND

On his little grave and wild,
Faustinus, the martyr child,
Candytuft and mustards grow.
Ah, how many a June has smiled
On the turf he lies below.

Ages gone they laid him there,
Quit of sun and wholesome air,
Broken flesh and tortured limb;
Leaving all his faith the heir
Of his gentle hope and him.

Yonder, under pagan skies,
Bleached by rains, the circus lies,
Where they brought him from his play.
Comeliest his of sacrifice,
Youth and tender April day.

“Art thou not the shepherd’s son?--
There the hills thy lambkins run?--
These the fields thy brethren keep?”
“On a higher hill than yon
Doth my Father lead His sheep.”

“Bring thy ransom, then,” they say,
“Gold enough to pave the way
From the temple to the Rhone.”
When he came, upon his day,
Slender, tremulous, alone,

Mustard flowers like these he pressed,
Golden, flame-like, to his breast,
Blooms the early weanlings eat.
When his Triumph brought him rest,
Yellow bloom lay at his feet.

Golden play-days came: the air
Called him, weanlings bleated there,
Roman boys ran fleet with spring;
Shorn of youth and usage fair,
Hope nor hill-top days they bring.

But the shepherd children still
Come at Easter, warm or chill,
Come with violets gathered wild
From his sloping pasture hill,
Play-fellows who would fulfill
Play-time to that martyr child.

THE ENCORE

No garlands in the winter-time,
No trumpets in the night!
The song ye praise was done lang syne,
And was its own delight.
O’ God’s name take the wreath away,
Since now the music’s sped;
Ye never cry, “Long live the king!”
Until the king is dead.

When I came piping through the land,
One morning in the spring,
With cockle-burrs upon my coat,
’Twas then I was a king:
A mullein sceptre in my hand,
My order daisies three,
With song’s first freshness on my lips--
And then ye pitied me!

SONG

Troubadour, when you were gay,
You wooed with rose and roundelay,
Singing harp-strings, sweet as May.
From beneath the crown of bay
Fell the wild, abundant hair.
Scent of cherry bloom and pear
With you from the south did fare,
Buds of myrtle for your wear.
Soft as summer stars thine eyes,
Planets pale in violet skies;
Summer wind that sings and dies
Was the music of thy sighs.

Troubadour, one winter’s night,
When the pasture-lands were white
And the cruel stars were bright,
Fortune held thee in despite.
Then beneath my tower you bore
Rose nor rondel as of yore,
But a heavy grief and sore
Laid in silence at my door.
April yearneth, April goes;
Not for me her violet blows,
I have done for long with those.
At my breast thy sorrow grows,
Nearer to my heart, God knows,
Than ever roundelay or rose!

L’ENVOI

Where are the loves that we have loved before
When once we are alone, and shut the door?
No matter whose the arms that held me fast,
The arms of Darkness hold me at the last.
No matter down what primrose path I tend,
I kiss the lips of Silence in the end.
No matter on what heart I found delight,
I come again unto the breast of Night.
No matter when or how love did befall,
’Tis Loneliness that loves me best of all,
And in the end she claims me, and I know
That she will stay, though all the rest may go.
No matter whose the eyes that I would keep
Near in the dark, ’tis in the eyes of Sleep
That I must look and look forever more,
When once I am alone, and shut the door.