Lundy's Lane and Other Poems Part 4

All my life long I heard the step Of some one I would know, Break softly in upon my days And lightly come and go.

A foot so brisk I said must bear A heart that's clean and clear; If that companion blithe would come, I should be happy here.

But though I waited long and well, He never came at all, I grew aweary of the void, Even of the light foot-fall.

From loneliness to loneliness I felt my spirit grope-- At last I knew the uttermost, The loneliness of hope.

And just upon the border land, Where flesh and spirit part, I knew the secret foot-fall was The beating of my heart.

NIGHT

The night is old, and all the world Is wearied out with strife; A long gray mist lies heavy and wan Above the house of life.

Four stars burn up and are unquelled By the low, shrunken moon; Her spirit draws her down and down-- She shall be buried soon.

There is a sound that is no sound, Yet fine it falls and clear, The whisper of the spinning earth To the tranced atmosphere.

An odour lives where once was air, A strange, unearthly scent, From the burning of the four great stars Within the firmament.

The universe, deathless and old, Breathes, yet is void of breath: As still as death that seems to move And yet is still as death.

THE APPARITION

Gentle angel with your mantle, All of tender green, I was yearning for a vision Of the life unseen.

When you hovered in the sunset, Just as rain was done; Where the dropping from the poplars Seemed like rain begun.

There you gathered forming slowly Rounding into view: All your vesture glowed like verdure When the sap is new.

Then you mutely gave your warning And I felt the stress Of its pa.s.sion and its presage And its utterness.

There you swayed one tranquil moment, Mystically fair, Then you were not of the sunset, Were not in the air.

AT SEA

Three are emerald pools in the sea, And wing-like flashes of light; The sea is bound with the heavens In a large delight.

Night comes out of the east And rushes down on the sun; The emerald pools and the light pools Are darkened and done.

Our boat dips and cleaves onward, Careless of night or of light, Following the line of her compa.s.s By her engines' might.

Through the desert of air and of water; Like the lonely soul of man, Following her fate to the ending, Unaware of the hidden plan.

Sure only of battle and longing, Of the pain and the quest, And beyond in the darkness somewhere Sure of her rest.

MADONNA WITH TWO ANGELS

Under the sky without a stain The long, ripe, rippling of the grain; Light, broadcast from the golden oats Over the blackberry fences floats.

Madonna sits in a cedar chair Tranquillized by the warm, still air; One of the angels asleep on her knee Under the shade of an apple tree.

The other angel holds a doll, Covered warm in a tiny shawl; The toy is supposed to be fast asleep As the sister angel: in dimples deep The grave, sweet charm on the baby face Repeats the look of maturer grace That hovers about Madonna's eyes, One of the heavenly mysteries From far ethereal lat.i.tudes Where neither doubt nor trouble intrudes.

Ponder here in the orchard nest On the truth of life made manifest: The struggle and effort was all to prove That the best of the world is home and love.

MID-AUGUST

From the upland hidden, Where the hill is sunny Tawny like pure honey In the August heat, Memories float unbidden Where the thicket serries Fragrant with ripe berries And the milk-weed sweet.

Like a prayer-mat holy Are the patterned mosses Which the twin-flower crosses With her flowerless vine; In fragile melancholy The pallid ghost flowers hover As if to guard and cover The shadow of a shrine.

Where the pine-linnet lingered The pale water searches, The roots of gleaming birches Draw silver from the lake; The ripples, liquid-fingered, Plucking the root-layers, Fairy like lute players Lulling music make.

O to lie here brooding Where the pine-tree column Rises dark and solemn To the airy lair, Where, the day eluding, Night is couched dream laden, Like a deep witch-maiden Hidden in her hair.

In filmy evanescence Wraithlike scents a.s.semble, Then dissolve and tremble A little until they die; Spirits of the florescence Where the bees searched and tarried Till the blossoms all were married In the days before July.

Light has lost its splendour, Light refined and sifted, Cool light and dream drifted Ventures even where, (Seeping silver tender) In the dim recesses, Trembling mid her tresses, Hides the maiden hair.

Covered with the shy-light, Filling in the hushes, Slide the tawny thrushes Calling to their broods, h.o.a.rding till the twilight The song that made for noon-days Of the amorous June days Preludes and interludes.

The joy that I am feeling Is there something in it Unlike the warble the linnet Phrases and intones?

Or is a like thought stealing With a rapture fine, free Through the happy pine tree Ripening her cones?

In some high existence In another planet Where their poets cannot Know our birds and flowers, Does the same persistence Give the dreams they issue Something like the tissue Of these dreams of ours?

O to lie athinking-- Moods and whims! I fancy Only necromancy Could the web unroll, Only somehow linking Beauties that meet and mingle In this quiet dingle With the beauty of the whole.