Part 21 (1/2)

So Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Coign And the trick there's no recalling, They will haggle and hew till they hack you through And at last they lay you sprawling: When 'Hey! for the hour of the race in flower And the long good-bye to sin!'

And for the lack the fires of h.e.l.l gone out Of the fuel to keep them in!'

But Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Bough And the ghastly Dreams that tend you, Your growth began with the life of Man, And only his death can end you.

They may tug in line at your hempen twine, They may flourish with axe and saw; But your taproot drinks of the Sacred Springs In the living rock of Law.

And Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Fork, When the spent sun reels and blunders Down a welkin lit with the flare of the Pit As it seethes in spate and thunders, Stern on the glare of the tortured air Your lines august shall gloom, And your master-beam be the last thing whelmed In the ruining roar of Doom.

XVIII--I. M.--MARGARET EMMA HENLEY (1888-1894)

When you wake in your crib, You, an inch of experience - Vaulted about With the wonder of darkness; Wailing and striving To reach from your feebleness Something you feel Will be good to and cherish you, Something you know And can rest upon blindly: O, then a hand (Your mother's, your mother's!) By the fall of its fingers All knowledge, all power to you, Out of the dreary, Discouraging strangenesses Comes to and masters you, Takes you, and lovingly Woos you and soothes you Back, as you cling to it, Back to some comforting Corner of sleep.

So you wake in your bed, Having lived, having loved; But the shadows are there, And the world and its kingdoms Incredibly faded; And you group through the Terror Above you and under For the light, for the warmth, The a.s.surance of life; But the blasts are ice-born, And your heart is nigh burst With the weight of the gloom And the stress of your strangled And desperate endeavour: Sudden a hand - Mother, O Mother! - G.o.d at His best to you, Out of the roaring, Impossible silences, Falls on and urges you, Mightily, tenderly, Forth, as you clutch at it, Forth to the infinite Peace of the Grave.

October 1891

XIX--I. M.--R. L. S. (1850-1894)

O, Time and Change, they range and range From suns.h.i.+ne round to thunder! - They glance and go as the great winds blow, And the best of our dreams drive under: For Time and Change estrange, estrange - And, now they have looked and seen us, O, we that were dear, we are all-too near With the thick of the world between us.

O, Death and Time, they chime and chime Like bells at sunset falling! - They end the song, they right the wrong, They set the old echoes calling: For Death and Time bring on the prime Of G.o.d's own chosen weather, And we lie in the peace of the Great Release As once in the gra.s.s together.

February 1891

XX

The shadow of Dawn; Stillness and stars and over-mastering dreams Of Life and Death and Sleep; Heard over gleaming flats, the old, unchanging sound Of the old, unchanging Sea.

My soul and yours - O, hand in hand let us fare forth, two ghosts, Into the ghostliness, The infinite and abounding solitudes, Beyond--O, beyond!--beyond . . .

Here in the porch Upon the mult.i.tudinous silences Of the kingdoms of the grave, We twain are you and I--two ghosts Omnipotence Can touch no more . . . no more!

XXI

When the wind storms by with a shout, and the stern sea-caves Rejoice in the tramp and the roar of onsetting waves, Then, then, it comes home to the heart that the top of life Is the pa.s.sion that burns the blood in the act of strife - Till you pity the dead down there in their quiet graves.

But to drowse with the fen behind and the fog before, When the rain-rot spreads and a tame sea mumbles the sh.o.r.e, Not to adventure, none to fight, no right and no wrong, Sons of the Sword heart-sick for a stave of your sire's old song - O, you envy the blessed death that can live no more!

XXII