Artemis to Actaeon, and Other Verses Part 5

Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day In wind-l.u.s.trated hollows crystalline, A wan Valkyrie whose wide pinions shine Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, And in her hand swings high o'erhead, Above the waste of war, The silver torch-light of the evening star Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.

II

Lagooned in gold, Seem not those jetty promontories rather The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, Uncomforted of morn, Where old oblivions gather, The melancholy unconsoling fold Of all things that go utterly to death And mix no more, no more With life's perpetually awakening breath?

Shall Time not ferry me to such a sh.o.r.e, Over such sailless seas, To walk with hope's slain importunities In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not All things be there forgot, Save the sea's golden barrier and the black Close-crouching promontories?

Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade, A spectre self-destroyed, So purged of all remembrance and sucked back Into the primal void, That should we on that sh.o.r.e phantasmal meet I should not know the coming of your feet?

MOONRISE OVER TYRINGHAM

NOW the high holocaust of hours is done, And all the west empurpled with their death, How swift oblivion drinks the fallen sun, How little while the dusk remembereth!

Though some there were, proud hours that marched in mail, And took the morning on auspicious crest, Crying to fortune "Back, for I prevail!"-- Yet now they lie disfeatured with the rest;

And some that stole so soft on destiny Methought they had surprised her to a smile; But these fled frozen when she turned to see, And moaned and muttered through my heart awhile.

But now the day is emptied of them all, And night absorbs their life-blood at a draught; And so my life lies, as the G.o.ds let fall An empty cup from which their lips have quaffed.

Yet see--night is not . . . by translucent ways, Up the grey void of autumn afternoon Steals a mild crescent, charioted in haze, And all the air is merciful as June.

The lake is a forgotten streak of day That trembles through the hemlocks' darkling bars, And still, my heart, still some divine delay Upon the threshold holds the earliest stars.

O pale equivocal hour, whose suppliant feet Haunt the mute reaches of the sleeping wind, Art thou a watcher stealing to entreat Prayer and sepulture for thy fallen kind?

Poor plaintive waif of a predestined race, Their ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here?

Go hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face, Lest I should look on it and call it dear.

For if I love thee thou wilt sooner die; Some sudden ruin will plunge upon thy head, Midnight will fall from the revengeful sky And hurl thee down among thy shuddering dead.

Avert thine eyes. Lapse softly from my sight, Call not my name, nor heed if thine I crave, So shalt thou sink through mitigated night And bathe thee in the all-effacing wave.

But upward still thy perilous footsteps fare Along a high-hung heaven drenched in light, Dilating on a tide of crystal air That floods the dark hills to their utmost height.

Strange hour, is this thy waning face that leans Out of mid-heaven and makes my soul its gla.s.s?

What victory is imaged there? What means Thy tarrying smile? Oh, veil thy lips and pa.s.s.

Nay . . . pause and let me name thee! For I see, O with what flooding ecstasy of light, Strange hour that wilt not loose thy hold on me, Thou'rt not day's latest, but the first of night!

And after thee the gold-foot stars come thick, From hand to hand they toss the flying fire, Till all the zenith with their dance is quick About the wheeling music of the Lyre.

Dread hour that lead'st the immemorial round, With lifted torch revealing one by one The thronging splendours that the day held bound, And how each blue abyss enshrines its sun--

Be thou the image of a thought that fares Forth from itself, and flings its ray ahead, Leaping the barriers of ephemeral cares, To where our lives are but the ages' tread,

And let this year be, not the last of youth, But first--like thee!--of some new train of hours, If more remote from hope, yet nearer truth, And kin to the unpet.i.tionable powers.

ALL SOULS

I

A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead, And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.

Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways, Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays, But forth of the gate and down the road, Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.

For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night, When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

II

Fear not that sound like wind in the trees: It is only their call that comes on the breeze; Fear not the shudder that seems to pa.s.s: It is only the tread of their feet on the gra.s.s; Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop: It is only the touch of their hands that grope-- For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night, When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

III

And where should a man bring his sweet to woo But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?

Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss, The empty hands that their fellows miss, Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green, Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?

For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night, When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

IV

And now they rise and walk in the cold, Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.

Let them see us and hear us, and say: "Ah, thus In the prime of the year it went with us!"

Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist, Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!

For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night, When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.

V

Till they say, as they hear us--poor dead, poor dead!-- "Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed-- Just a thrill of the old remembered pains To kindle a flame in our frozen veins, A touch, and a sight, and a floating apart, As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart-- For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night, When the dead can hear and the dead have sight."

VI

And where should the living feel alive But here in this wan white humming hive, As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold, And one by one they creep back to the fold?

And where should a man hold his mate and say: "One more, one more, ere we go their way"?

For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night, When the living can learn by the churchyard light.

VII

And how should we break faith who have seen Those dead lips plight with the mist between, And how forget, who have seen how soon They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?

How scorn, how hate, how strive, wee too, Who must do so soon as those others do?