Poems & Ballads Volume I Part 6

Have I not built thee a grave, and wrought Thy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought, With soft spun verses and tears unshed, And sweet light visions of things undone?

"I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh, And gold, and beautiful burial things.

But thou, be at peace now, make no stir; Is not thy grave as a royal king's?

Fret not thyself though the end were sore; Sleep, be patient, vex me no more.

Sleep; what hast thou to do with her?

The eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings?"

Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten, The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by, The misconceived and the misbegotten, I would find a sin to do ere I die, Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through, That would set you higher in heaven, serve you And leave you happy, when clean forgotten, As a dead man out of mind, am I.

Your lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me, I am swift to follow you, keen to see; But love lacks might to redeem or undo me; As I have been, I know I shall surely be; "What should such fellows as I do?" Nay, My part were worse if I chose to play; For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, Not a soul upon earth would pity me.

And I play not for pity of these; but you, If you saw with your soul what man am I, You would praise me at least that my soul all through Clove to you, loathing the lives that lie; The souls and lips that are bought and sold, The smiles of silver and kisses of gold, The lapdog loves that whine as they chew, The little lovers that curse and cry.

There are fairer women, I hear; that may be; But I, that I love you and find you fair, Who are more than fair in my eyes if they be, Do the high G.o.ds know or the great G.o.ds care?

Though the swords in my heart for one were seven, Would the iron hollow of doubtful heaven, That knows not itself whether night-time or day be, Reverberate words and a foolish prayer?

I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea.

I will go down to her, I and none other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me; Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast: O fair white mother, in days long past Born without sister, born without brother, Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

O fair green-girdled mother of mine, Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, Thy large embraces are keen like pain.

Save me and hide me with all thy waves, Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, Those pure cold populous graves of thine Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide; My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips, I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside; Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were, Filled full with life to the eyes and hair, As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

This woven raiment of nights and days, Were it once cast off and unwound from me, Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways, Alive and aware of thy ways and thee; Clear of the whole world, hidden at home, Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam, A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays, A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.

Fair mother, fed with the lives of men, Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say.

Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again; Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.

But death is the worst that comes of thee; Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea, But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when, Having given us love, hast thou taken away?

O tender-hearted, O perfect lover, Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.

The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover, Shall they not vanish away and apart?

But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth; Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth; Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover; From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.

And grief shall endure not for ever, I know.

As things that are not shall these things be; We shall live through seasons of sun and of snow, And none be grievous as this to me.

We shall hear, as one in a trance that hears, The sound of time, the rhyme of the years; Wrecked hope and pa.s.sionate pain will grow As tender things of a spring-tide sea.

Sea-fruit that swings in the waves that hiss, Drowned gold and purple and royal rings.

And all time past, was it all for this?

Times unforgotten, and treasures of things?

Swift years of liking and sweet long laughter, That wist not well of the years thereafter Till love woke, smitten at heart by a kiss, With lips that trembled and trailing wings?

There lived a singer in France of old By the tideless dolorous midland sea.

In a land of sand and ruin and gold There shone one woman, and none but she.

And finding life for her love's sake fail, Being fain to see her, he bade set sail, Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold, And praised G.o.d, seeing; and so died he.

Died, praising G.o.d for his gift and grace: For she bowed down to him weeping, and said "Live;" and her tears were shed on his face Or ever the life in his face was shed.

The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung Once, and her close lips touched him and clung Once, and grew one with his lips for a s.p.a.ce; And so drew back, and the man was dead.

O brother, the G.o.ds were good to you.

Sleep, and be glad while the world endures.

Be well content as the years wear through; Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures; Give thanks for life, O brother, and death, For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath, For gifts she gave you, gracious and few, Tears and kisses, that lady of yours.

Rest, and be glad of the G.o.ds; but I, How shall I praise them, or how take rest?

There is not room under all the sky For me that know not of worst or best, Dream or desire of the days before, Sweet things or bitterness, any more.

Love will not come to me now though I die, As love came close to you, breast to breast.

I shall never be friends again with roses; I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes, As a wave of the sea turned back by song.

There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire, Face to face with its own desire; A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes; I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.

The pulse of war and pa.s.sion of wonder, The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine, The stars that sing and the loves that thunder, The music burning at heart like wine, An armed archangel whose hands raise up All senses mixed in the spirit's cup Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder-- These things are over, and no more mine.

These were a part of the playing I heard Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife; Love that sings and hath wings as a bird, Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.

Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep Than overwatching of eyes that weep, Now time has done with his one sweet word, The wine and leaven of lovely life.

I shall go my ways, tread out my measure, Fill the days of my daily breath With fugitive things not good to treasure, Do as the world doth, say as it saith; But if we had loved each other--O sweet, Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet, The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure To feel you tread it to dust and death--

Ah, had I not taken my life up and given All that life gives and the years let go, The wine and honey, the balm and leaven, The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?

Come life, come death, not a word be said; Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?

I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven, If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?

LES NOYADES

Whatever a man of the sons of men Shall say to his heart of the lords above, They have shown man verily, once and again, Marvellous mercies and infinite love.

In the wild fifth year of the change of things, When France was glorious and blood-red, fair With dust of battle and deaths of kings, A queen of men, with helmeted hair,

Carrier came down to the Loire and slew, Till all the ways and the waves waxed red: Bound and drowned, slaying two by two, Maidens and young men, naked and wed.

They brought on a day to his judgment-place One rough with labour and red with fight, And a lady n.o.ble by name and face, Faultless, a maiden, wonderful, white.

She knew not, being for shame's sake blind, If his eyes were hot on her face hard by.

And the judge bade strip and ship them, and bind Bosom to bosom, to drown and die.

The white girl winced and whitened; but he Caught fire, waxed bright as a great bright flame Seen with thunder far out on the sea, Laughed hard as the glad blood went and came.

Twice his lips quailed with delight, then said, "I have but a word to you all, one word; Bear with me; surely I am but dead;"

And all they laughed and mocked him and heard.

"Judge, when they open the judgment-roll, I will stand upright before G.o.d and pray: 'Lord G.o.d, have mercy on one man's soul, For his mercy was great upon earth, I say.

"'Lord, if I loved thee--Lord, if I served-- If these who darkened thy fair Son's face I fought with, sparing not one, nor swerved A hand's-breadth, Lord, in the perilous place--

"'I pray thee say to this man, O Lord, _Sit thou for him at my feet on a throne_.