Part 2 (1/2)

A LONDON IDYLL

II

Just to all of us once there comes This splendour and wonder of love, When the earth is trans.m.u.ted to silver and gold, And heaven opens above;

When all we have ever seen with our eyes, Daily, under the sun, Seems like a miracle, happening again To us two, instead of to one.

When there is nothing so ugly or mean, But somehow s.h.i.+mmers and glows In that light, whose spring is within our hearts And whose stream o'er the wide earth flows.

When the spirit of us that is prisoned within Seems at last to have wings, And, soaring, looks with no common eyes On no other than common things;

When we may freely enter and share Heaven's splendour and mirth-- Just for a moment to all of us comes This glory of love upon earth.

FINIS

S.C.K.S.

A book's end is the end of many hopes; Much good endeavour; certain hours of stress When brain and spirit fail, and laziness Thralls the poor body--yet the purpose gropes Athwart it all, and as the horseman cheers His tired beast with chirrup, spur, and goad Towards his home along the heavy road, So drives us purpose till the end appears.

Read it who may! Find more or less of good Within its covers, but at least find this: Glad service to a great and n.o.ble aim That may be striven for, and understood, And fallen short of--so not quite we miss In our small lamp of clay Truth's very flame.

OTHER VERSES

IN EARLY SPRING

There's a secret, have you guessed it, you with human eyes and hearing-- Which the birds know, which the trees know, and by which the earth is stirred, Stirred through all her deep foundations, where the water-springs are fastened, Where the seed is, and the growth is, and the still blind life is heard?

There's a miracle, a miracle--oh mortal, have you seen it?

When the springs rise, and the saps rise, and the gallant cut-and-thrust Of the spear-head bright battalions of the little green things growing (Crocus-blade or gra.s.s-blade) pierce the brown earth's sullen crust?

Oh, wonder beyond speaking in the daily common happening; But the little birds have known it, and the evening-singing thrush, In the cold and pearly twilights that are February's token Speaks of revelation through the falling day-time's hush.

A BALLAD OF THE FALL OF KNOSSOS

(_Circa_ 1400 B.C.)

Is it a whisper that runs through the galleries?

Is it a rustle that stirs in the halls?

Is it of mortals, or things that are otherwise This sound that so haltingly, dreadfully falls, Pauses, and hurries, and falls?

No moon, and no torches; not even a glimmer To pin-p.r.i.c.k the darkness that weighs like a sin, And nothing is breathing, and nothing is stirring, And hushed are the small owls without, and within The mice to their holes have run in.

It is not the step of a foot on the pavement; It is not the brush of a wing through the air; It is not a pa.s.sing, it is not a presence, But the ghost of the fate that this palace must bear, Of the ruin of Knossos goes there.