Ardours and Endurances Part 13

For, ah! what voice is this can make The vagrant heart within me ache?

That stirs an ancient tenderness, A new need to console, love, bless All things that 'neath this warm night sky Rejoice and suffer, age and die?

Hunger is in my heart like bliss,-- I stretch my arms out and I kiss, Gathered in sad and sweet embrace, The whole world's dark and simple face.

XXI

I wander forth. About my feet _Of the The sward is fresh and doubly sweet Second Singer._ The loved air on my salved brow.

Be still. Be still. For hearken: now A second voice behind the grove Uprises tremulous with love.

How hushed, how moody is the strain!

Pleading--O, surely, not in vain!

Sombrely rises every note, Lingers, and in dark dells remote Echoes until another come.

Philomel herself falls dumb.

Philomel herself falls dumb, Mindful of her shadowy home; Of a slowly falling surge Sounding its unending dirge On an alien ocean's verge; Of a rain-smitten tower that stood Fronting the calm, pale rolling flood; Of a slim sister's beauty glows, Fatefuller than a midnight rose; Of the birth, growth, and scheming dire, Of an accursed King's desire; Of night-long vigil, tongueless wrack, And the last exultation black O'er loathly offering, feasting sour, A fell cry in the lonely tower, Raging pursuit, flight's vain endeavour, And Vengeance stilling all for ever.-- Save the voice that nightly cries To the slowly wheeling skies Of unrest resolved in calm, Time's tears fallen like a balm, Sorrows that dead hearts have wrung, By the sad Enthusiast sung, Sweeter than Euphrosyne's tongue.

O tremulous voice! who is 't that shakes The night with fervour?

Through the brakes Softly I thread ... emerge, and now Across the rising meadow's brow I glimpse, beside the farther wood, Under the shadow of its hood, A glimmering shape that does not move.

It is the shepherd and his love: Close, close they stand, swooning and dim; Her shadowed face looks up at him, Her sighing breath his forehead warms; He sings, she leans within his arms.

_The Shepherd._ Now arched dark boughs hang dim and still; The deep dew glistens up the hill; THE SHEPHERD'S Silence trembles. All is still. NIGHT SONG.

Now the sweet siren of the woods, Philomel, pa.s.sionately broods, Or, darkling, hymns love's wildest moods.

Danae, fainting in her tower, Feels a sudden sun swim lower, Gasps beneath the starry shower.

Venus in the pomegranate grove Flutters like a fluttering dove Under young Adonis' love.

Leda longs until alight In the reeds those wings of white She hears beat the upper night.

Golden now the glowing moon, Diana over Endymion Downward bends as in a swoon.

Wherefore, since the G.o.ds agree, Youth is sweet and Night is free, And Love pleasure, should not we?

Song whose desire her kisses bless! _The Faun Song that wreaks wounds no lips redress, is struck O wounding song! Such loneliness with Sorrow._ Falls, like a stun blow from behind, That my hands grope, my eyes go blind.

I gasp....

Away, Away, O heart!

Lone, wretched Faun, depart, depart; Hide thyself, wretched, utterly, Climb to the clouds where none may see And mock thy causeless misery!

What joy is mine? what is 't I have: Immortal life? would 'twere a grave.

Thus, thus to suffer world-without-end, No love, no hope, no goal, no friend!

And the proud, morning Centaur, how Fares he? what lot doth Fate allow?-- More wretched yet! to live and be Perfection's lone epitome.

To feel in him a fecund power, And lack on which to spend that dower!...

I mind me now that once I heard Wise, gentle Pan p.r.o.nounce this word: "_Whoever like a G.o.d would shine Must share the loneliness divine._"

Ah! to be G.o.ds, then, is to be One fierce eternal agony.

Yet, being G.o.ds, such feel no pain; Their strength is equal to their bane.

While I, poor half-G.o.d and half-beast, I would be man, the last and least Of men!

O reasoning vain: Were I but man and one in pain, I could not by my utmost wipe One tear away. But now this pipe Hangs from my neck, G.o.d Pan's elect _He takes Comfort Gift to his children to perfect in the Uncommon In awe, joy, grief, and loneliness. Gift of G.o.d._ Sound, pipe, and with thy note express All this my heart! to thee I give All the long days that I must live.

I wander on, I fade in mist, O peopled World, and dost thou list?

Pipe on, difficult pipes of mine; There is something in me divine, And it must out. For this was I Born, and I know I cannot die Until, perfected pipe, thou send My utmost: G.o.d, which is

THE END.

BOOK III

POEMS AND PHANTASIES

To MR. AND MRS. MOISEIWITSCH

A TRIPTYCH

I.--FIRST PANEL: THE HILL

On a day in Maytime mild Mary sat on a hill-top with her child.

(Overhead in the calm sky's arching The curled white clouds went slowly marching....

But underneath the blue abyss All was stiller than water is Leagues under the surface of the sea.) And all about her thick and free Blossomed the dear familiar flowers.

There, while her boy played through the hours, And the high sun shook gold upon her, Mary plaited a garland in his honour Who should be the King of Kings; And when 'tis done this song she sings, As Jesus, tired and happy, rests Curled in the hollow of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s:

"In the shadow of my dress, Out of the sun And his fierce caress, Sleep, my son.

"Soft the air about the hill, Scented, sunny, clear, and still; Below in the woods the daffodil Nods, and the shy anemone Creeps up from the thicket to look on thee, And ten thousand daisies meet In an ocean of stars about thy feet.

"Daisies have I strung for thee, Darling boy, Wee white blossoms that shall be Dappled, ah! so rosily With thy blood, When they nail thee to the wood Cleft from out the crooked tree.

Can it be, Daisies innocent and good, That ye star black Calvary?

"b.u.t.tercups I make thy crown, Darling boy.

(Lullaby, O lullaby!) Son of sorrow, son of joy, Pain and Paradise thou art, Thou that sighest nestling down In my breast, over my heart That is a lake Where the hidden tear-drops ache To be free, Till mounting upward for thy sake Out they break, Down they plash on me and thee.

"And Heaven in her charity Drops seven tears on me and thee.

"This thy little childhood's crown, Flower on flower, Wear thou in thy lullaby Till thou facest the soldiers' frown In thine iron hour, Till the thorn they crown thee by They press down: Ah, the sharp points in my heart!

Ah, the sword, the sudden smart Flaying me as 'twere a flame!

Crowned indeed, my son, thou art With red flowers of pain and shame!