Part 1 (2/2)

I tell you, who have stood in the dark alone.

Seeing the face that turneth all to stone, Medusa, blind with hate, While I was dying, Beauty sate with me Nor tortured any longer; gracious was she; To her soft words I listened, and was content To die, nor sorry that my light was spent.

So, Brother, if I come not home, Go to that little room That my spirit revisiteth, and there, Somewhere in the blue air, you shall discover If that you be a lover Nor haughtily minded, all that once half-shaped Then fled us, and escaped: All that I found that day, Far, so far away.

And you, my lovely one, What can I leave to you, who, you having left, Am utterly bereft?

What in my store of visionary dowers Is not already yours?

What silences, what hours Of peace pa.s.sing all understanding; days Made lyric by your beauty and its praise; Years neither time can tarnish, nor death mar, Wherein you s.h.i.+ned as steadfast as a star In my bleak night, heedless of the cloud-wrack Scudding in torn fleeces black Of my dark moods, as those who rule the far Star-haunted pleasaunces of heaven are?

So think but lightly of that afternoon With white clouds climbing a blue sky in June When a boy wors.h.i.+pped under dreaming trees, Who touched your hand, and sought your eyes.

... Ah, cease, Not these, not these...

Nor yet those nights when icy Brathay thundered Under his bridges, and ghostly mountains wondered At the white blossoming of a Christmas rose More stainless than their snows; Nor even of those placid days together Mellow as early autumn's amber weather When beech is ankleted with fire, and old Elms wear their livery of yellow gold, When orchards all are laden with increase, And the quiet earth hath fruited, and knows peace Oh, think not overmuch on those sweet years Lest their last fruit be tears,-- Your tears, beloved, that were my utmost pain,-- But rather, dream again How that a lover, half poet and half child, An eager spirit of fragile fancies wild Compact, adored the beauty and truth in you: To your own truth be true; And when, not mournfully, you turn this page Consider still your starry heritage, Continue in your loveliness, a star To gladden me from afar Even where there is no light In my last night.

LOCHANILAUN

This is the image of my last content: My soul shall be a little lonely lake, So hidden that no shadow of man may break The folding of its mountain battlement; Only the beautiful and innocent Whiteness of sea-born cloud drooping to shake Cool rain upon the reed-beds, or the wake Of churn'd cloud in a howling wind's descent.

For there shall be no terror in the night When stars that I have loved are born in me, And cloudy darkness I will hold most fair; But this shall be the end of my delight: That you, my lovely one, may stoop and see Your image in the mirrored beauty there.

LETTERMORE

These winter days on Lettermore The brown west wind it sweeps the bay, And icy rain beats on the bare Unhomely fields that perish there: The stony fields of Lettermore That drink the white Atlantic spray.

And men who starve on Lettermore, Cursing the haggard, hungry surf, Will souse the autumn's bruised grains To light dark fires within their brains And fight with stones on Lettermore Or sprawl beside the smoky turf.

When spring blows over Lettermore To bloom the ragged furze with gold, The lovely south wind's living breath Is laden with the smell of death: For fever breeds on Lettermore To waste the eyes of young and old.

A black van comes to Lettermore; The horses stumble on the stones, The drivers curse,--for it is hard To cross the hills from Oughterard And cart the sick from Lettermore: A stinking load of rags and bones.

But you will go to Lettermore When white sea-trout are on the run, When purple glows between the rocks About Lord Dudley's fis.h.i.+ng-box Adown the road to Lettermore, And wide seas tarnish in the sun.

And so you'll think of Lettermore As a lost island of the blest: With peasant lovers in a blue Dim dusk, with heather drench'd in dew, And the sweet peace of Lettermore Remote and dreaming in the West.

LAMENT

Once, I think, a finer fire Touched my lips, and then I sang Half the songs of my desire: With their splendour the world rang.

And their sweetness made me free Of those starry ways whereby Planets make their minstrelsy In echoing, unending sky.

So, before that spell was broken, Song of the wind, surge of the sea,-- Beautiful pa.s.sionate things unspoken Rose like a breaking wave in me:

Rose like a wave with curled crest That green sunlight splinters through...

But the wave broke within my breast: And now I am a man like you.

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