Eight Harvard Poets Part 7

OF TOO MUCH SONG

Sedges, have you sung too much, Sedges gray along the sh.o.r.e?

Can this autumn tempest touch Answering chords in you no more?

Is the summer all forgot?-- Now the ice is dark and strong That has bound you to the spot-- Did you die of too much song?

Something in me is a harp Played by every wanton breeze.

Moaning soft and piping sharp Are its wondrous melodies.

Is the playing over-fast Though the answer now is strong?

Like the sedges at the last Will it die of too much song?

[WHEREVER MY DREAMS GO]

Wherever my dreams go, you are always there, And you and I have gone to many a land, Seeing high hills at dawn and desert sand, Temples and mosques and people bowed in prayer.

We too have prayed in many places where Beauty has come as I have clasped your hand, And through long silence learned to understand The dumb sweet language of your eyes and hair.

We have been lovers in all fair romances Beyond the rising or the sunken sun.

There have been foes to meet, and I have done Great deeds beneath the splendor of your glances....

And yet I dreamed alone; you could not guess What joy you brought into my loneliness.

[OUT OF THE LITTLENESS]

Out of the littleness that wraps my days, The oppressive mist of gray and common things, Sometimes my dream on its audacious wings, Dripping with golden fire, above the haze, Flashes and veers against the sudden blaze Of sunlight. There no other wings may gleam But only yours, companioning my dream In its strange flight up new and radiant ways.

And once, I thought, in a far solitude, The black waves moaned and broke unutterably On a stern cliff where hand in hand we stood.

There were none near us when the dark had gone,-- Only the clean wind of a sailless sea, And you and I alone in the great dawn.

NAHANT

Last night the sea was an enchanted moan And a pale pathway that the moonlight made.

All night it sorrowed in the dark alone, Groping with ghostly fingers, half afraid, Up the great rocks and sobbing back again, Weary of search, yet still unsatisfied.

It seemed to have the voice of all dead men And all fair women who had ever died.

But now the sun has risen, and the spray Leaps into sudden light along the sh.o.r.e.

Each little wave has caught a golden ray-- As if the dawn had never come before.

Beyond the cliffs brown fishing boats go by Under the reach of the wide laughing sky.

QUI SUB LUNA ERRANT

In a strange land they dwell, too far away From sunlight and the common mirth of men Ever to come within our casual ken.

We see them not, but if by chance we stray Down cypress aisles when the wan summer day Draws to a thin and sickly close, we hear Murmur of mad speech by some watery weir Or languid laughter and faint sound of play.

They never see the dawn; like the pale moths That haunt lugubrious shadows of dim trees They celebrate their lunar mysteries At woodland shrines, where with green thyrsus rods And weak limbs wrapped in silken sensuous cloths They chant the names of their dead pagan G.o.ds.

[ACROSS THE TAUT STRINGS]

Across the taut strings of my yearning soul Pa.s.s fingers of all fleet and beautiful things: Comings of dawn and moonlight glimmerings, Mid-summer hush and Sabbath bells that toll Over broad fields, a sound of thrushes' wings Near sunset hour, a girl with lips apart, Wonder and laughter,--these have touched my heart And left their music lingering on its strings.

At twilight of some gray, eventual year, A few late friends will turn, with trembling breath, From the raw mound of earth that hides my face....

Yet I shall still find beauty, even in death, And some lone traveller of the night will hear An echo of music in that quiet place.

ESCAPE

They danced beneath the stars, a crazy rout With antic steps that had some little grace; And one leapt high with song and frenzied shout, And one ran silent with a gleaming face.

They danced until the shy moon looking down Deemed herself lost above some Grecian glade; A mile away the trim New England town Echoed the Baccha.n.a.lian din they made.

And still they danced, until the moon sank low, Blushing a little, and night's diadem Of stars grew pale before the eastern glow....

And with the dawn their keepers came for them.

ON A STREET CORNER

But all the time you spoke I did not hear The words you said. I only heard a far Faint sound of summer waters and a clear Calling of music from some lonely star.

I thought I heard the lisp of falling dew In a dark meadow where no breezes stirred....

Then all at once the noisy street, and you Smiling at me because I had not heard!