Volume Ii Part 176 (2/2)

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

THE HILL

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely gra.s.s.

You said, ”Through glory and ecstasy we pa.s.s; Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, When we are old, are old....” ”And when we die All's over that is ours; and life burns on Through other lovers, other lips,” said I, --”Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!”

”We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.

Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!” we said; ”We shall go down with unreluctant tread Rose-crowned into the darkness!”... Proud we were, And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.

--And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

SONNETS From ”Sonnets to Miranda”

Daughter of her whose face, and lofty name Prenuptial, of old States and Cities speak, Where lands of wine look north to peak on peak Of the overwatching Alps: through her, you claim Kins.h.i.+p with vanished Power, unvanished Fame; And midst a world grown colorless and bleak I see the blood of Doges in your cheek, And in your hair the t.i.tian tints of flame.

Daughter of England too, you first drew breath Where our coy Springs to our coy Summers yield; And you descend from one whose lance and s.h.i.+eld Were with the grandsire of Elizabeth, When the Plantagenet saw the avenger Death Toward him spurring over Bosworth field.

II If you had lived in that more stately time When men remembered the great Tudor queen, To n.o.blest verse your name had wedded been, And you for ever crowned with golden rhyme.

If, mid Lorenzo's Florence, made sublime By Art's Re-Birth, you had moved, a Muse serene, The mightiest limners had revealed your mien To all the ages and each wondering clime.

Fled are the singers that from language drew Its virgin secrets; and in narrow s.p.a.ce The mightiest limners sleep: and only He, The Eternal Artist, still creates anew That which is fairer than all song--the grace That takes the world into captivity.

III I dare but sing of you in such a strain As may beseem the wandering harper's tongue, Who of the glory of his Queen hath sung, Outside her castle gates in wind and rain.

She, seated mid the n.o.blest of her train, In her great halls with pictured arras hung, Hardly can know what melody hath rung Through the forgetting night, and rung in vain.

He, with one word from her to whom he brings The loyal heart that she alone can sway, Would be made rich for ever; but he sings Of queenhood too aloof, too great, to say ”Sing on, sing on, O minstrel”--though he flings His soul to the winds that whirl his songs away.

V I cast these lyric offerings at your feet, And ask you but to fling them not away: There suffer them to rest, till even they, By happy nearness to yourself, grow sweet.

He that hath shaped and wrought them holds it meet That you be sung, not in some artless way, But with such pomp and ritual as when May Sends her full choir, the throned Morn to greet.

With something caught from your own lofty air, With something learned from your own highborn grace, Song must approach your presence; must forbear All light and easy accost; and yet abase Its own proud spirit in awe and reverence there, Before the Wonder of your form and face.

VI I move amid your throng, I watch you hold Converse with many who are n.o.ble and fair, Yourself the n.o.blest and the fairest there, Reigning supreme, crowned with that living gold.

I talk with men whose names have been enrolled In England's book of honor; and I share With these one honor--your regard; and wear Your friends.h.i.+p as a jewel of worth untold.

And then I go from out your sphered light Into a world which still seems full of You.

I know the stars are yonder, that possess Their ancient seats, heedless what mortals do; But I behold in all the range of Night Only the splendor of your loveliness.

VIII If I had never known your face at all, Had only heard you speak, beyond thick screen Of leaves, in an old garden, when the sheen Of morning dwelt on dial and ivied wall, I think your voice had been enough to call Yourself before me, in living vision seen, So pregnant with your Essence had it been.

So charged with You, in each soft rise and fall.

At least I know, that when upon the night With chanted word your voice lets loose your soul, I am pierced, I am pierced and cloven, with Delight That hath all Pain within it, and the whole World's tears, all ecstasy of inward sight, And the blind cry of all the seas that roll.

William Watson [1858-1935]

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