Poems: New and Old Part 16

Now that within His spirit sleeps A harvest thin The sickle reaps;

But the dumb fields Desire his tread, And no earth yields A wheat more red.

{141}.

'The Mossrose'

Walking to-day in your garden, O gracious lady, Little you thought as you turned in that alley remote and shady, And gave me a rose and asked if I knew its savour-- The old-world scent of the mossrose, flower of a bygone favour--

Little you thought as you waited the word of apprais.e.m.e.nt, Laughing at first and then amazed at my amazement, That the rose you gave was a gift already cherished, And the garden whence you plucked it a garden long perished.

But I--I saw that garden, with its one treasure The tiny mossrose, tiny even by childhood's measure, And the long morning shadow of the dusty laurel, And a boy and a girl beneath it, flushed with a childish quarrel.

She wept for her one little bud: but he, outreaching The hand of brotherly right, would take it for all her beseeching:

{142}.

And she flung her arms about him, and gave like a sister, And laughed at her own tears, and wept again when he kissed her.

So the rose is mine long since, and whenever I find it And drink again the sharp sweet scent of the moss behind it, I remember the tears of a child, and her love and her laughter, And the morning shadows of youth and the night that fell thereafter.

{143}.

'Ave, Soror'

I left behind the ways of care, The crowded hurrying hours, I breathed again the woodland air, I plucked the woodland flowers:

Bluebells as yet but half awake, Primroses pale and cool, Anemones like stars that shake In a green twilight pool--

On these still lay the enchanted shade, The magic April sun; With my own child a child I strayed And thought the years were one.

As through the copse she went and came My senses lost their truth; I called her by the dear dead name That sweetened all my youth.

{144}.

'To a River in the South'

Call me no more, O gentle stream, To wander through thy sunny dream, No more to lean at twilight cool Above thy weir and glimmering pool.

Surely I know thy h.o.a.ry dawns, The silver crisp on all thy lawns, The softly swirling undersong That rocks thy reeds the winter long.

Surely I know the joys that ring Through the green deeps of leafy spring; I know the elfin cups and domes That are their small and secret homes.

Yet is the light for ever lost That daily once thy meadows crossed, The voice no more by thee is heard That matched the song of stream and bird.

Call me no more!--thy waters roll Here, in the world that is my soul, And here, though Earth be drowned in night, Old love shall dwell with old delight.

{145}.

'On the Death of a n.o.ble Lady'

Time, when thou shalt bring again Pallas from the Trojan plain, Portia from the Roman's hall, Brynhild from the fiery wall, Eleanor, whose fearless breath Drew the venom'd fangs of Death, And Philippa doubly brave Or to conquer or to save--

When thou shalt on one bestow All their grace and all their glow, All their strength and all their state, All their pa.s.sion pure and great, Some far age may honour then Such another queen of men.

{146}.

'Midway'

Turn back, my Soul, no longer set Thy peace upon the years to come Turn back, the land of thy regret Holds nothing doubtful, nothing dumb.

There are the voices, there the scenes That make thy life in living truth A tale of heroes and of queens, Fairer than all the hopes of youth.

{147}.

'Ad Matrem Dolorosam'

Think not thy little fountain's rain That in the sunlight rose and flashed, From the bright sky has fallen again, To cold and shadowy silence dashed.

The Joy that in her radiance leapt From everlasting hath not slept.

The hand that to thy hand was dear, The untroubled eyes that mirrored thine, The voice that gave thy soul to hear A whisper of the Love Divine-- What though the gold was mixed with dust?

The gold is thine and cannot rust.

Nor fear, because thy darling's heart No longer beats with mortal life, That she has missed the enn.o.bling part Of human growth and human strife.

Only she has the eternal peace Wherein to reap the soul's increase.

{148}.

'Vrais Amants'

(FOURTEENTH CENTURY).

"Time mocks thy opening music with a close; What now he gives long since he gave away.

Thou deemst thy sun hath risen, but ere it rose It was eclipsed, and dusk shall be thy day."

Yet has the Dawn gone up: in loveliest light She walks high heaven beyond the shadow there: Whom I too veiled from all men's envious sight With inward eyes adore and silent prayer.

{149}.

'The Sangreal'