1914 And Other Poems Part 2

Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever!

Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you!

Most fair,--the blind has lost your face for ever!

Most foul,--how could I see you while I kissed you?

So ... the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you, For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you.

A MEMORY (_From a sonnet-sequence_)

Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept Softly along the dim way to your room, And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom, And holiness about you as you slept.

I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept About my head, and held it. I had rest Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.

I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.

It was great wrong you did me; and for gain Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease, And sleepy mother-comfort!

Child, you know How easily love leaps out to dreams like these, Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

WAIKIKI, _October_ 1913

ONE DAY

Today I have been happy. All the day I held the memory of you, and wove Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray, And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love, And sent you following the white waves of sea, And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth, Stray buds from that old dust of misery, Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.

So lightly I played with those dark memories, Just as a child, beneath the summer skies, Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone, For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old, And love has been betrayed, and murder done, And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.

THE PACIFIC, _October_ 1913

WAIKIKI

Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes, Somewhere an _eukaleli_ thrills and cries And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.

And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me, Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise; And new stars burn into the ancient skies, Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.

And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again, And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known An empty tale, of idleness and pain, Of two that loved--or did not love--and one Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly, A long while since, and by some other sea.

WAIKIKI, 1913

HAUNTINGS

In the grey tumult of these after years Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part; And less-than-echoes of remembered tears Hush all the loud confusion of the heart; And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and crying Hungers, and pains, and each dull pa.s.sionate mood,-- Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying, Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.

So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams, Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams, Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men, Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible, And light on waving gra.s.s, he knows not when, And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.

THE PACIFIC, 1914

SONNET (_Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_)

Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun, We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread Those dusty high-roads of the aimless dead Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run Down some close-covered by-way of the air, Some low sweet alley between wind and wind, Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there

Spend in pure converse our eternal day; Think each in each, immediately wise; Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say What this tumultuous body now denies; And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.

CLOUDS

Down the blue night the unending columns press In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow, Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness.

Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless, And turn with profound gesture vague and slow, As who would pray good for the world, but know Their benediction empty as they bless.

They say that the Dead die not, but remain Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.

I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, In wise majestic melancholy train, And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, And men, coming and going on the earth.

THE PACIFIC, _October_ 1913

MUTABILITY

They say there's a high windless world and strange, Out of the wash of days and temporal tide, Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide, _aeterna corpora_, subject to no change.

There the sure suns of these pale shadows move; There stand the immortal ensigns of our war; Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star, And perishing hearts, imperishable Love....

Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile; Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over; Love has no habitation but the heart.

Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile, Cling, and are borne into the night apart.

The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover.

SOUTH KENSINGTON--MAKAWELI, 1913