Into the shade and loneliness and mireOf the last land! There, waiting patiently,One day, I think, I’ll feel a cool wind blowing,See a slow light across the Stygian tide,And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,Pass, light as ever,…
In decent mourning, from the country’s ends,Those scatter’d friendsWho had lived the boon companions of his prime,And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse,The days and nights and dawnings of the timeWhen Youth kept open house,Nor left untastedAught of his high emprise and ventures dear,No quest of…
There was a thunder on the deep:I came, because you called to me.I broke the Night’s primeval bars,I dared the old abysmal curse,And flashed through ranks of frightened starsSuddenly on the universe!The eternal silences were broken;Hell became Heaven as I passed. —What shall I give you as a token,A sign that we have met, at…
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apartFrom the dead best, the dear and old delight;Throw down your dreams of immortality,O faithful, O foolish lover!Here’s peace for you, and surety; here the oneWisdom — the truth! — ‘All day the good glad sunShowers love and labour on you,…
And in my flower-beds, I think,Smile the carnation and the pink;And down the borders, well I know,The poppy and the pansy blow . . .Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,Beside the river make for youA tunnel of green gloom, and sleepDeeply above; and green and deepThe stream mysterious glides beneath,Green as a dream and deep…
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,Each secret fishy hope or fear.Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;But is there anything Beyond?This life cannot be All, they swear,For how unpleasant, if it were!One may not doubt that, somehow, GoodShall come of Water and of Mud;And, sure, the reverent eye must seeA Purpose in Liquidity.We darkly…
Blind with much light, passed to the light more gloriousOr deeper blindness, no man’s hand, as thine,Has, on the world’s most noblest chord of song,Struck certain magic strains. Ears satiateWith the clamorous, timorous whisperings of to-day,Thrilled to perceive once more the spacious voiceAnd serene unterrance of old. We heard— With rapturous breath half-held, as a…
(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)What light of unremembered skiesHast thou relumed within our eyes,Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find?…A certain odour on the wind,Thy hidden face beyond the west,These things have called us; on a questOlder than any road we trod,More endless than desire.…Far…
She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother.She was lustful and lewd? — but a God; we had none other.In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade;We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.(The People without)She sent us pain,And we…
Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.Ah! the long road! and you so far away!Oh, I’ll remember! but . . . each crawling dayWill pale a little your scarlet lips, each mileDull the dear pain of your remembered face.. . . Do you think there’s a…
