Family

Fade off the ridges, rosy light,
Fade slowly from the last gray height,
And leave no gloomy cloud to grieve
The heart of this enchanted eve!

All things beneath the still sky seem
Bound by the spell of a sweet dream;
In the dusk forest, dreamingly,
Droops slowly down each plumèd head;
The river flowing softly by
Dreams of the sea; the quiet sea
Dreams of the unseen stars; and I
Am dreaming of the dreamless dead.

The river has a silken sheen,
But red rays of the sunset stain
Its pictures, from the steep shore caught,
Till shades of rock, and fern, and tree
Glow like the figures on a pane
Of some old church by twilight seen,
Or like the rich devices wrought
In mediaeval tapestry.

All lonely in a drifting boat
Through shi...

Here, pent about by office walls
And barren eyes all day,
’Tis sweet to think of waterfalls
Two hundred miles away!

I would not ask you, friends, to brook
An old, old truth from me,
If I could shut a Poet’s book
Which haunts me like the Sea!

He saith to me, this Poet saith,
So many things of light,
That I have found a fourfold faith,
And gained a twofold sight.

He telleth me, this Poet tells,
How much of God is seen
Amongst the deep-mossed English dells,
And miles of gleaming green.

From many a black Gethsemane,
He leads my bleeding feet
To where I hear the Morning Sea
Round shining spaces beat!

To where I feel the wind, which brings
A sound of running creeks,
And blows those dark, unpleasant things,<...

    Waking in the night to pray,
    Sleeping when the answer comes,
    Foolish are we even at play--
    Tearfully we beat our drums!
    Cast the good dry bread away,
    Weep, and gather up the crumbs!

    "Evermore," while shines the day,
    "Lord," we cry, "thy will be done!"
    Soon as evening groweth gray,
    Thy fair will we fain would shun!
    "Take, oh, take thy hand away!
    See the horrid dark begun!"

    "Thou hast conquered Death," we say,
    "Christ, whom Hades could not keep!"
    Then, "Ah, see the pallid clay!
    Death it is," we cry, "not sleep!
    Grave, take all. Shut out the Day.
    Sit we on the ground and weep!"

    Gathering potsherds all the day,
    Truant children, Lord, we roam;
    F...

    It was long and long ago our love began;
    It is something all unmeasured by time's span:
In an era and a spot, by the Modern World forgot,
    We were lovers, ere God named us, Maid and Man.

    Like the memory of music made by streams,
    All the beauty of that other love life seems;
But I always thought it so, and at last I know, I know,
    We were lovers in the Land of Silver Dreams.

    When the moon was at the full, I found the place;
    Out and out, across the seas of shining space,
On a quest that could not fail, I unfurled my memory's sail
    And cast anchor in the Bay of Love's First Grace.

    At the foot of Aristarchus lies this bay,
    (Oh! the wonder of that mountain far away!)
And the Land of Silver Dreams all about it shines ...

        At last the bird that sang so long
        In twilight circles, hushed his song:
        Above the ancient square
        The stars came here and there.

        Good Friday night! Some hearts were bowed,
        But some amid the waiting crowd
        Because of too much youth
        Felt not that mystic ruth;

        And of these hearts my heart was one:
        Nor when beneath the arch of stone
        With dirge and candle flame
        The cross of passion came,

        Did my glad spirit feel reproof,
        Though on the awful tree aloof,
        Unspiritual, dead,
        Drooped the ensanguined Head.

        To one who stood where myrtles made
        A little space of deeper shade
        (As I could half d...

What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai?
You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me;
You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by.
I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees . . .
Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees.

‘These lines, converging, they suggest such distance!
The soul is drawn away, beyond horizons.
Lured out to what? One dares not think.
Sometimes, I glimpse these infinite perspectives
In intimate talk (with such as you) and shrink . . .

‘One feels so petty! One feels such, emptiness!’
You mimic horror, let fall your lifted hand,
And smile at me; with brooding tenderness . . .
Alone on darkened waters I fall and rise;
Slow waves above me break, faint waves of cries.

‘And then these colors . . . but who would dare ...

There is a power whose inspiration fills
Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought,
Like airy dew ere any drop distils,
Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught
Unseen which interfused throughout the whole
Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul.
Now when, the drift of old desire renewing,
Warm tides flow northward over valley and field,
When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooing
From their deep-chambered recesses long sealed
Such memories as breathe once more
Of childhood and the happy hues it wore,
Now, with a fervor that has never been
In years gone by, it stirs me to respond, -
Not as a force whose fountains are within
The faculties of the percipient mind,
Subject with them to darkness and decay,
But something absolute, somethi...

They say that fair Romance is dead, and in her cold grave lying low,
The green grass waving o'er her head, the mould upon her breasts of snow;
Her voice, they say, is dumb for aye, that once was clarion-clear and high,
But in their hearts, their frozen hearts, they know that bitterly they lie.

Her brow of white, that was with bright rose-garland in the old days crowned,
Is now, they say, all shorn of light, and with a fatal fillet bound.
Her eyes divine no more shall shine to lead the hardy knight and good
Unto the Castle Perilous, beyond the dark Enchanted Wood.

And do they deem, these fools supreme, whose iron wheels unceasing whirr,
That, in this rushing Age of Steam, there is no longer room for her?
That, as they hold the Key of Gold that shuts or opens Mammon's Den,
R...

        This, then, is she,
        My mother as she looked at seventeen,
        When she first met my father. Young incredibly,
        Younger than spring, without the faintest trace
        Of disappointment, weariness, or tean
        Upon the childlike earnestness and grace
        Of the waiting face.
        These close-wound ropes of pearl
        (Or common beads made precious by their use)
        Seem heavy for so slight a throat to wear;
        But the low bodice leaves the shoulders bare
        And half the glad swell of the breast, for news
        That now the woman stirs within the girl.
        And yet,
        Even so, the loops and globes
        Of beaten gold
        And jet
        Hung, in the stately way of old,
        Fro...

I
Beyond the hollow sunset, ere a star
Take heart in heaven from eastward, while the west,
Fulfilled of watery resonance and rest,
Is as a port with clouds for harbour bar
To fold the fleet in of the winds from far
That stir no plume now of the bland sea’s breast:

II
Above the soft sweep of the breathless bay
Southwestward, far past flight of night and day,
Lower than the sunken sunset sinks, and higher
Than dawn can freak the front of heaven with fire,
My thought with eyes and wings made wide makes way
To find the place of souls that I desire.

III
If any place for any soul there be,
Disrobed and disentrammelled; if the might,
The fire and force that filled with ardent light
The souls whose shadow is half the light we see,
Survive an...

One bright star in the firmament,
One wild rose in the dew,
And a girl, like the sparkling two,
Following the cows that went
Through roses wet with dew,
Roses, two by two.

Shy she was as the twilight skies
When they hesitate with stars,
As she stood to wait at the pasture bars,
Gazing with far-off eyes
At the slowly coming stars
Over the pasture bars.

She hummed a tune while the cattle passed,
And the bells in the dusk clanged clear;
Then a whistle caught her ear,
And she knew 'twas love at last,
While the bells in the dusk clanged clear,
And his whistle caught her ear.

The smell of the hay came warm and sweet
From the field there where he stood,
The field by the old beech wood,
Where a bird sang, "Sweet! oh, sweet!"<...

I love the fitful gust that shakes
The casement all the day,
And from the glossy elm tree takes
The faded leaves away,
Twirling them by the window pane
With thousand others down the lane.

I love to see the shaking twig
Dance till the shut of eve,
The sparrow on the cottage rig,
Whose chirp would make believe
That Spring was just now flirting by
In Summer's lap with flowers to lie.

I love to see the cottage smoke
Curl upwards through the trees,
The pigeons nestled round the cote
On November days like these;
The cock upon the dunghill crowing,
The mill sails on the heath a-going.

The feather from the raven's breast
Falls on the stubble lea,
The acorns near the old crow's nest
Drop pattering down the tree;
The grunt...

From publick Noise and factious Strife,
From all the busie Ills of Life,
Take me, My Celia, to Thy Breast;
And lull my wearied Soul to Rest:
For ever, in this humble Cell,
Let Thee and I, my Fair One, dwell;
None enter else, but Love and He
Shall bar the Door, and keep the Key.

To painted Roofs, and shining Spires
(Uneasie Seats of high Desires)
Let the unthinking Many croud,
That dare be Covetous and Proud:
In golden Bondage let Them wait,
And barter Happiness for State:
But Oh! My Celia, when Thy Swain
Desires to see a Court again;
May Heav'n around This destin'd Head
The choicest of it's Curses shed:
To sum up all the Rage of Fate,
In the Two Things I dread and hate;
May'st Thou be False, and I be Great.

Thus, on his Cel...

    In bloom and bud the bees are busily
        Storing against the winter their sweet hoard
    That shall be rifled ere the autumn be
        Past, or the winter comes with silver sword
    To fright the bees, until the merry round
    Tells them that sweets again are to be found.

    The lusty tide is flowing by in ease,
        Telling of joy along its brimming way;
    Far in its waters is an isle of trees
        Whereto the sun will go at end of day,
    As who in secret place and dear is hid,
    And scarce can rouse him thence tho' he be chid.

    Now justice comes all trouble to repair,
        And cheeks that had been wan are coloured well,
    The untilled moor is comely, and the air
        Hath a great round of song from bird in dell,

A poet of one mood in all my lays,
    Ranging all life to sing one only love,
    Like a west wind across the world I move,
Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways.

The countries change, but not the west-wind days
    Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above,
    And on all seas the colours of a dove,
And on all fields a flash of silver greys.

I make the whole world answer to my art
    And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears
I change not ever, bearing, for my part,
    One thought that is the treasure of my years,
A small cloud full of rain upon my heart
    And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears.

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.
That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.
If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:
Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

The wild-plum tree, whose leaves grow thin,
Has strewn the way with half its fruit:
The grasshopper's and cricket's din
Grows hushed and mute;
The veery seems a far-off flute
Where Summer listens, hand on chin,
And taps an idle foot.

A silvery haze veils half the hills,
That crown themselves with clouds like cream;
The crow its clamor almost stills,
The hawk its scream;
The aster stars begin to gleam;
And 'mid them, by the sleepy rills,
The Summer dreams her dream.

The butterfly upon its weed
Droops as if weary of its wings;
The bee, 'mid blooms that turn to seed,
Half-hearted clings,
Sick of the only song it sings,
While Summer tunes a drowsy reed
And dreams of far-off things.

Passion, of which unrest is part,
T...

    Ho! green fields and running brooks!
    Knotted strings and fishing-hooks
    Of the truant, stealing down
    Weedy backways of the town.

    Where the sunshine overlooks,
    By green fields and running brooks,
    All intruding guests of chance
    With a golden tolerance,

    Cooing doves, or pensive pair
    Of picnickers, straying there -
    By green fields and running brooks,
    Sylvan shades and mossy nooks!

    And - O Dreamer of the Days,
    Murmurer of roundelays
    All unsung of words or books,
    Sing green fields and running brooks!