Part 6 (1/2)

We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind, An equal s.p.a.ciousness of bondage find In confines far or near, of air or our own kind.

Our looks and longings, which affront the stars, Most richly bruised against their golden bars, Delighted captives of their flaming spears, Find a restraint restrainless which appears As that is, and so simply natural, In you;--the fair detention freedom call, And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.

Such sweet captivity, and only such, In you, as in those golden bars, we touch!

Our gazes for sufficing limits know The firmament above, your face below; Our longings are contented with the skies, Contented with the heaven, and your eyes.

My restless wings, that beat the whole world through, Flag on the confines of the sun and you; And find the human pale remoter of the two.

AFTER HER GOING

The after-even! Ah, did I walk, Indeed, in her or even?

For nothing of me or around But absent She did leaven, Felt in my body as its soul, And in my soul its heaven.

”Ah me! my very flesh turns soul, Essenced,” I sighed, ”with bliss!”

And the blackbird held his lutany, All fragrant-through with bliss; And all things stilled were as a maid Sweet with a single kiss.

For grief of perfect fairness, eve Could nothing do but smile; The time was far too perfect fair, Being but for a while; And ah, in me, too happy grief Blinded herself with smile!

The sunset at its radiant heart Had somewhat unconfest: The bird was loath of speech, its song Half-refluent on its breast, And made melodious toyings with A note or two at best.

And she was gone, my sole, my Fair, Ah, sole my Fair, was gone!

Methinks, throughout the world 'twere right I had been sad alone; And yet, such sweet in all things' heart, And such sweet in my own!

Miscellaneous Poems

A FALLEN YEW

It seemed corrival of the world's great prime, Made to un-edge the scythe of Time, And last with stateliest rhyme.

No tender Dryad ever did indue That rigid chiton of rough yew, To fret her white flesh through:

But some G.o.d, like to those grim Asgard lords Who walk the fables of the hordes From Scandinavian fjords,

Upheaved its stubborn girth, and raised unriven, Against the whirl-blast and the levin, Defiant arms to Heaven.

When doom puffed out the stars, we might have said, It would decline its heavy head, And see the world to bed.

For this firm yew did from the va.s.sal leas, And rain and air, its tributaries, Its revenues increase,

And levy impost on the golden sun, Take the blind years as they might run, And no fate seek or shun.

But now our yew is strook, is fallen--yea Hacked like dull wood of every day To this and that, men say.

Never!--To Hades' shadowy s.h.i.+pyards gone, Dim barge of Dis, down Acheron It drops, or Lethe wan.

Stirred by its fall--poor destined bark of Dis!-- Along my soul a bruit there is Of echoing images,

Reverberations of mortality: Spelt backward from its death, to me Its life reads saddenedly.