Part 5 (1/2)
O thou who comest to our wintry shade Gay and light-footed as the virgin Spring, Before whose s.h.i.+ning feet the cherries fling Their moony tribute, when the sloe is sprayed With light, and all things musical are made: O thou who art Spring's daughter, who can bring Blossom, or song of bird, or anything To match the youth in which you stand arrayed?
Not that rich garland Meleager twined In his sun-guarded glade above the blue That flashes from the burning Tyrian seas: No, you are cooler, sweeter than the wind That wakes our woodlands; so I bring to you These wind-blown blossoms of anemones.
HER VARIETY
Soft as a pale moth flitting in moons.h.i.+ne I saw thee flutter to the shadowy call That beckons from the strings of Carneval, O frail and fragrant image of Columbine: So, when the spectre of the rose was thine, A flower wert thou, and last I saw thee fall In Cleopatra's stormy baccha.n.a.l Flown with the red insurgence of the vine.
O moth, O flower, O maenad, which art thou?
Shadowy, beautiful, or leaping wild As stormlight over savage Tartar skies?
Such were my ancient questionings; but now I know that you are nothing but a child With a red flower's mouth and hazel eyes.
HER SWIFTNESS
You are too swift for poetry, too fleet For any mused numbers to ensnare: Swifter than music dying on the air Or bloom upon rose-petals, fades the sweet Vanis.h.i.+ng magic of your flying feet, Your poised finger, and your s.h.i.+ning hair: Words cannot tell how wonderful you were, Or how one gesture made a joy complete.
And since you know my pen may never capture The transient swift loveliness of you, Come, let us salve our sense of the world's loss Remembering, with a melancholy rapture, How many dancing-girls ... and poets too...
Dream in the dust of Hecatompylos.
GHOSTLY LOVES
'Oh why,' my darling prayeth me, 'must you sing For ever of ghostly loves, phantasmal pa.s.sion?
Seeing that you never loved me after that fas.h.i.+on And the love I gave was not a phantom thing, But delight of eager lips and strong arms folding The beauty of yielding arms and of smooth shoulder, All fluent grace of which you were the moulder: And I.... Oh, I was happy for your holding.'
'Ah, do you not know, my dearest, have you not seen The shadow that broodeth over things that perish: How age may mock sweet moments that have been And death defile the beauty that we cherish?
Wherefore, sweet spirit, I thank thee for thy giving: 'Tis my spirit that embraceth thee dead or living.'
FEBRUARY
The robin on my lawn, He was the first to tell How, in the frozen dawn, This miracle befell, Waking the meadows white With h.o.a.r, the iron road Agleam with splintered light, And ice where water flowed: Till, when the low sun drank Those milky mists that cloak Hanger and hollied bank, The winter world awoke To hear the feeble bleat Of lambs on downland farms: A blackbird whistled sweet; Old beeches moved their arms Into a mellow haze Aerial, newly-born: And I, alone, agaze, Stood waiting for the thorn To break in blossom white Or burst in a green flame...
So, in a single night, Fair February came, Bidding my lips to sing Or whisper their surprise, With all the joy of spring And morning in her eyes.
SONG OF THE DARK AGES
We digged our trenches on the down Beside old barrows, and the wet White chalk we shovelled from below; It lay like drifts of thawing snow On parados and parapet: