Part 20 (1/2)

The spell-bound s.h.i.+ps stand as at gaze To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . .

Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades, What grace, what glamour, what wild will, Transfigure the shadows? Whose, Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours?

Ghosts--ghosts--the sapphirine air Teems with them even to the gleaming ends Of the wild day-spring! Ghosts, Everywhere--everywhere--till I and you At last--dear love, at last! - Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death, Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will.

XI

Gulls in an aery morrice Gleam and vanish and gleam . . .

The full sea, sleepily basking, Dreams under skies of dream.

Gulls in an aery morrice Circle and swoop and close . . .

Fuller and ever fuller The rose of the morning blows.

Gulls, in an aery morrice Frolicking, float and fade . . .

O, the way of a bird in the suns.h.i.+ne, The way of a man with a maid!

XII

Some starlit garden grey with dew, Some chamber flushed with wine and fire, What matters where, so I and you Are worthy our desire?

Behind, a past that scolds and jeers For ungirt loins and lamps unlit; In front, the unmanageable years, The trap upon the Pit;

Think on the shame of dreams for deeds, The scandal of unnatural strife, The slur upon immortal needs, The treason done to life:

Arise! no more a living lie, And with me quicken and control Some memory that shall magnify The universal Soul.

XIII--To James McNeill Whistler

Under a stagnant sky, Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom, The River, jaded and forlorn, Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on; Yet in and out among the ribs Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls, Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, Lingers to babble to a broken tune (Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!) So melancholy a soliloquy It sounds as it might tell The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, The terror of Time and Change and Death, That wastes this floating, transitory world.

What of the incantation That forced the huddled shapes on yonder sh.o.r.e To take and wear the night Like a material majesty?

That touched the shafts of wavering fire About this miserable welter and wash - (River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!) - Into long, s.h.i.+ning signals from the panes Of an enchanted pleasure-house, Where life and life might live life lost in life For ever and evermore?

O Death! O Change! O Time!

Without you, O, the insuperable eyes Of these poor Might-Have-Beens, These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!

XIV--To J. A. C.