Poems & Ballads Volume II Part 3

And were one to the end--but what end who knows?

Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither, As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.

Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them?

What love was ever as deep as a grave?

They are loveless now as the gra.s.s above them Or the wave.

All are at one now, roses and lovers, Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.

Not a breath of the time that has been hovers In the air now soft with a summer to be.

Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep, When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter We shall sleep.

Here death may deal not again for ever; Here change may come not till all change end.

From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, Who have left nought living to ravage and rend.

Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, While the sun and the rain live, these shall be; Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing Roll the sea.

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble, Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink, Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink, Here now in his triumph where all things falter, Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, As a G.o.d self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.

RELICS

This flower that smells of honey and the sea, White laurustine, seems in my hand to be A white star made of memory long ago Lit in the heaven of dear times dead to me.

A star out of the skies love used to know Here held in hand, a stray left yet to show What flowers my heart was full of in the days That are long since gone down dead memory's flow.

Dead memory that revives on doubtful ways, Half hearkening what the buried season says Out of the world of the unapparent dead Where the lost Aprils are, and the lost Mays.

Flower, once I knew thy star-white brethren bred Nigh where the last of all the land made head Against the sea, a keen-faced promontory, Flowers on salt wind and sprinkled sea-dews fed.

Their hearts were glad of the free place's glory; The wind that sang them all his stormy story Had talked all winter to the sleepless spray, And as the sea's their hues were hard and h.o.a.ry.

Like things born of the sea and the bright day, They laughed out at the years that could not slay, Live sons and joyous of unquiet hours, And stronger than all storms that range for prey.

And in the close indomitable flowers A keen-edged odour of the sun and showers Was as the smell of the fresh honeycomb Made sweet for mouths of none but paramours.

Out of the hard green wall of leaves that clomb They showed like windfalls of the snow-soft foam, Or feathers from the weary south-wind's wing, Fair as the spray that it came sh.o.r.eward from.

And thou, as white, what word hast thou to bring?

If my heart hearken, whereof wilt thou sing?

For some sign surely thou too hast to bear, Some word far south was taught thee of the spring.

White like a white rose, not like these that were Taught of the wind's mouth and the winter air, Poor tender thing of soft Italian bloom, Where once thou grewest, what else for me grew there?

Born in what spring and on what city's tomb, By whose hand wast thou reached, and plucked for whom?

There hangs about thee, could the soul's sense tell, An odour as of love and of love's doom.

Of days more sweet than thou wast sweet to smell, Of flower-soft thoughts that came to flower and fell, Of loves that lived a lily's life and died, Of dreams now dwelling where dead roses dwell.

O white birth of the golden mountain-side That for the sun's love makes its bosom wide At sunrise, and with all its woods and flowers Takes in the morning to its heart of pride!

Thou hast a word of that one land of ours, And of the fair town called of the Fair Towers, A word for me of my San Gimignan, A word of April's greenest-girdled hours.

Of the old breached walls whereon the wallflowers ran Called of Saint Fina, breachless now of man, Though time with soft feet break them stone by stone, Who breaks down hour by hour his own reign's span.

Of the old cliff overcome and overgrown That all that flowerage clothed as flesh clothes bone, That garment of acacias made for May, Whereof here lies one witness overblown.

The fair brave trees with all their flowers at play, How king-like they stood up into the day!

How sweet the day was with them, and the night!

Such words of message have dead flowers to say.

This that the winter and the wind made bright, And this that lived upon Italian light, Before I throw them and these words away, Who knows but I what memories too take flight?

AT A MONTH'S END

The night last night was strange and shaken: More strange the change of you and me.

Once more, for the old love's love forsaken, We went out once more toward the sea.

For the old love's love-sake dead and buried, One last time, one more and no more, We watched the waves set in, the serried Spears of the tide storming the sh.o.r.e.

Hardly we saw the high moon hanging, Heard hardly through the windy night Far waters ringing, low reefs clanging, Under wan skies and waste white light.

With chafe and change of surges chiming, The clas.h.i.+ng channels rocked and rang Large music, wave to wild wave timing, And all the choral water sang.

Faint lights fell this way, that way floated, Quick sparks of sea-fire keen like eyes From the rolled surf that flashed, and noted Sh.o.r.es and faint cliffs and bays and skies.

The ghost of sea that shrank up sighing At the sand's edge, a short sad breath Trembling to touch the goal, and dying With weak heart heaved up once in death--

The rustling sand and s.h.i.+ngle shaken With light sweet touches and small sound-- These could not move us, could not waken Hearts to look forth, eyes to look round.

Silent we went an hour together, Under grey skies by waters white.

Our hearts were full of windy weather, Clouds and blown stars and broken light.

Full of cold clouds and moonbeams drifted And streaming storms and straying fires, Our souls in us were stirred and s.h.i.+fted By doubts and dreams and foiled desires.

Across, aslant, a scudding sea-mew Swam, dipped, and dropped, and grazed the sea: And one with me I could not dream you; And one with you I could not be.

As the white wing the white wave's fringes Touched and slid over and flashed past-- As a pale cloud a pale flame tinges From the moon's lowest light and last--

As a star feels the sun and falters, Touched to death by diviner eyes-- As on the old G.o.ds' untended altars The old lire of withered wors.h.i.+p dies--

(Once only, once the shrine relighted Sees the last fiery shadow s.h.i.+ne, Last shadow of flame and faith benighted, Sees falter and flutter and fail the shrine)

So once with fiery breath and flying Your winged heart touched mine and went, And the swift spirits kissed, and sighing, Sundered and smiled and were content.

That only touch, that feeling only, Enough we found, we found too much; For the unlit shrine is hardly lonely As one the old fire forgets to touch.

Slight as the sea's sight of the sea-mew, Slight as the sun's sight of the star: Enough to show one must not deem you For love's sake other than you are.