Walter De La Mare

A twangling harp for Mary,
    A silvery flute for John,
And now we'll play the livelong day,
    'The Miller and his Son.'

'The Miller went a-walking
    All in the forest high,
He sees three doves a-flitting
    Against the dark blue sky:

'Says he, "My son, now follow
    These doves so white and free,
That cry above the forest,
    And surely cry to thee."

"I go, my dearest Father,
    But O! I sadly fear,
These doves so white will lead me far,
    But never bring me near."

'He kisses the Miller,
    He cries, "Awhoop to ye!"
And straightway through the forest
    Follows the wood-doves three.

'There came a sound of weeping
    To the Miller in his Mill;
Red roses in a thicket
    Bloomed over...

Who beckons the green ivy up
Its solitary tower of stone?
What spirit lures the bindweed's cup
    Unfaltering on?
Calls even the starry lichen to climb
By agelong inches endless Time?

Who bids the hollyhock uplift
Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high;
Fling wide her petals - silent, swift,
    Lovely to the sky?
Since as she kindled, so she will fade,
Flower above flower in squalor laid.

Ever the heavy billow rears
All its sea-length in green, hushed wall;
But totters as the shore it nears,
    Foams to its fall;
Where was its mark? on what vain quest
Rose that great water from its rest?

So creeps ambition on; so climb
Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high,
Forgets his birth, small space, brief time,
    That he sh...

"Won't you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?"
    Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden;
" Can't you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?"
    Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden;
But the air was still, the cherry boughs were still,
And the ivy-tod 'neath the empty sill,
And never from her window looked out Mrs. Gill
    On the Fairy shrilly mocking in the garden.

"What have they done with you, you poor Mrs. Gill?"
    Quoth the Fairy, brightly glancing in the garden;
"Where have they hidden you, you poor old Mrs. Gill?"
    Quoth the Fairy dancing lightly in the garden;
But night's faint veil now wrapped the hill,
Stark 'neath the stars stood the dead-still Mill,
And out of her cold cottage never answered Mrs. Gill
    The Fairy ...

Isled in the midnight air,
Musked with the dark's faint bloom,
Out into glooming and secret haunts
    The flame cries, 'Come!'

Lovely in dye and fan,
A-tremble in shimmering grace,
A moth from her winter swoon
    Uplifts her face:

Stares from her glamorous eyes;
Wafts her on plumes like mist;
In ecstasy swirls and sways
    To her strange tryst.

Through the green twilight of a hedge
I peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed,
And spied a bird upon a nest:
Two eyes she had beseeching me
Meekly and brave, and her brown breast
Throbb'd hot and quick above her heart;
And then she oped her dagger bill, -
'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe
At break of day; 'twas not a trill,
As falters through the quiet even;
But one sharp solitary note,
One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry
Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy,
One passionate note of victory:
Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked,
Smiling the smile the fool smiles best,
At the mother bird in the secret hedge
Patient upon her lonely nest.

Still, and blanched, and cold, and lone,
The icy hills far off from me
With frosty ulys overgrown
Stand in their sculptured secrecy.

No path of theirs the chamois fleet
Treads, with a nostril to the wind;
O'er their ice-marbled glaciers beat
No wings of eagles in my mind -

Yea, in my mind these mountains rise,
Their perils dyed with evening's rose;
And still my ghost sits at my eyes
And thirsts for their untroubled snows.

'Tis silence on the enchanted lake,
And silence in the air serene,
Save for the beating of her heart,
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.

She sings across the waters clear
And dark with trees and stars between,
The notes her fairy godmother
Taught her, the child Evangeline.

As might the unrippled pool reply,
Faltering an answer far and sweet,
Three swans as white as mountain snow
Swim mantling to her feet.

And still upon the lake they stay,
Their eyes black stars in all their snow,
And softly, in the glassy pool,
Their feet beat darkly to and fro.

She rides upon her little boat,
Her swans swim through the starry sheen,
Rowing her into Fairyland -
The lovely-eyed Evangeline.

'Tis silence on the enchanted lake,
And ...

'Tis moonlight on Trebarwith Vale,
    And moonlight on an Ogre keen,
Who prowling hungry through the dale
    A lone cottage hath seen.

Small with thin smoke ascending up
    Three casements and a door: -
The Ogre eager is to sup,
    And here seems dainty store.

Sweet as a larder to a mouse,
    So to him staring down,
Seemed the sweet-windowed moonlit house,
    With jasmine overgrown.

He snorted, as the billows snort
    In darkness of the night,
Betwixt his lean locks tawny-swart,
    He glowered on the sight.

Into the garden sweet with peas
    He put his wooden shoe,
And bending back the apple trees
    Crept covetously through;

Then, stooping, with an impious eye
    Stared through the lattice smal...

A very, very old house I know-
And ever so many people go,
Past the small lodge, forlorn and still,
Under the heavy branches, till
Comes the blank wall, and there's the door.
Go in they do; come out no more.
No voice says aught; no spark of light
Across that threshold cheers the sight;
Only the evening star on high
Less lonely makes a lonely sky,
As, one by one, the people go
Into that very old house I know.

Old and alone, sit we,
Caged, riddle-rid men;
Lost to Earth's "Listen!" and "See!"
Thought's "Wherefore?" and "When?"

Only far memories stray
Of a past once lovely, but now
Wasted and faded away,
Like green leaves from the bough.

Vast broods the silence of night,
The ruinous moon
Lifts on our faces her light,
Whence all dreaming is gone.

We speak not; trembles each head;
In their sockets our eyes are still;
Desire as cold as the dead;
Without wonder or will.
And One, with a lanthorn, draws near,
At clash with the moon in our eyes:
"Where art thou?" he asks: "I am here,"
One by one we arise.

And none lifts a hand to withhold
A friend from the touch of that foe:
Heart cries unto heart, "Thou art old!"
Ye...

There came an Old Soldier to my door,
Asked a crust, and asked no more;
The wars had thinned him very bare,
Fighting and marching everywhere,
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.

With nose stuck out, and cheek sunk in,
A bristling beard upon his chin -
Powder and bullets and wounds and drums
Had come to that Soldier as suchlike comes -
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.

'Twas sweet and fresh with buds of May,
Flowers springing from every spray;
And when he had supped the Old Soldier trolled
The song of youth that never grows old,
Called Fol rol dol rol di do.

Most of him rags, and all of him lean,
And the belt round his belly drawn tightsome in
He lifted his peaked old grizzled head,
And these were the very same words he said-
A Fol-rol-do...

Nothing on the grey roof, nothing on the brown,
Only a little greening where the rain drips down;
Nobody at the window, nobody at the door,
Only a little hollow which a foot once wore;
But still I tread on tiptoe, still tiptoe on I go,
Past nettles, porch, and weedy well, for oh, I know
A friendless face is peering, and a still clear eye
Peeps closely through the casement
    as my step goes by.

There came a Pedlar to an evening house;
Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down,
Wondered what man he was, so curious
His black hair dangled on his tattered gown:
Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes, -
'What will you buy, sweetheart? - Here's honeycomb,
And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies,
Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom,
To keep in water for to make night sweet:
All that you want, sweetheart, - come, taste and eat!'

Ev'n with his sugared words, returned to her
The clear remembrance of a gentle voice: -
'And O! my child, should ever a flatterer
Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys
And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be;
Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song,
Confuse his magic who is all mockery:

'Upstairs in the large closet, child,
    This side the blue-room door,
Is an old Bible, bound in leather,
    Standing upon the floor;

'Go with this taper, bring it me;
    Carry it on your arm;
It is the book on many a sea
    Hath stilled the waves' alarm.'

Late the hour, dark the night,
    The house is solitary,
Feeble is a taper's light
    To light poor Ann to see.

Her eyes are yet with visions bright
    Of sylph and river, flower and fay,
Now through a narrow corridor
    She takes her lonely way.

Vast shadows on the heedless walls
    Gigantic loom, stoop low:
Each little hasty footfall calls
    Hollowly to and fro.

In the dim solitude her heart
    Remembers tearlessly
White winters when h...

    Here is a sea-legged sailor,
    Come to this tottering Inn,
Just when the bronze on its signboard is fading,
    And the black shades of evening begin.

    With his head on thick paws sleeps a sheep-dog,
    There stoops the Shepherd, and see,
All follow-my-leader the ducks waddle homeward,
    Under the sycamore tree.

    Very brown is the face of the Sailor,
    His bundle is crimson, and green
Are the thick leafy boughs that hang dense o'er the Tavern,
    And blue the far meadows between.

    But the Crust, Ale and Cheese of the Sailor,
    His Mug and his platter of Delf,
And the crescent to light home the Shepherd and Sheep-dog
    The painter has kept to himself.

The old Pig said to the little pigs,
    'In the forest is truffles and mast,
Follow me then, all ye little pigs,
    Follow me fast!'

The Charcoal-burner sat in the shade
    With his chin on his thumb,
And saw the big Pig and the little pigs,
    Chuffling come.

He watched 'neath a green and giant bough,
    And the pigs in the ground
Made a wonderful grizzling and gruzzling
    And a greedy sound.

And when, full-fed they were gone, and Night
    Walked her starry ways,
He stared with his cheeks in his hands
    At his sullen blaze.

'Shall we carry now your bundle,
    You old grey man?

Over hill and over meadow,
Lighter than an owlet's shadow,
We will whirl it through the air,
Through blue regions shrill and bare;

Shall we carry now your bundle,
    You old grey man?'

The Pilgrim lifted up his eyes
And saw three fiends, in the skies,
Stooping o'er that lonely place
    Evil in form and face.

'O leave me, leave me, leave me,
    Ye three wild fiends!

Far it is my feet must wander,
And my city lieth yonder;
I must bear my bundle alone,
Help nor solace suffer none:

O leave me, leave me, leave me,
    Ye three wild fiends!'

The fiends stared down with greedy eye,
Fanning the chill air duskily,
'Twixt their hoods they sto...

His brow is seamed with line and scar;
    His cheek is red and dark as wine;
The fires as of a Northern star
    Beneath his cap of sable shine.

His right hand, bared of leathern glove,
    Hangs open like an iron gin,
You stoop to see his pulses move,
    To hear the blood sweep out and in.

He looks some king, so solitary
    In earnest thought he seems to stand,
As if across a lonely sea
    He gazed impatient of the land.

Out of the noisy centuries
    The foolish and the fearful fade;
Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes,
    Time hath not dimmed nor death dismayed.