Poems by Adam Lindsay Gordon Part 21

For nothing on earth is sadder Than the dream that cheated the grasp, The flower that turned to the adder, The fruit that changed to the asp; When the day-spring in darkness closes, As the sunset fades from the hills, With the fragrance of perish'd roses, With the music of parch'd-up rills.

When the sands on the sea-sh.o.r.e nourish Red clover and yellow corn; When figs on the thistle flourish, And grapes grow thick on the thorn; When the dead branch, blighted and blasted, Puts forth green leaves in the spring, Then the dream that life has outlasted Dead comfort to life may bring.

I have changed the soil and the season, But whether skies freeze or flame, The soil they flame on or freeze on Is changed in little save name; The loadstone points to the nor'ward, The river runs to the sea; And you would have me look forward, And backward I fain would flee.

I remember the bright spring garlands, The gold that spangled the green, And the purple on fairy far lands, And the white and the red bloom, seen From the spot where we last lay dreaming Together--yourself and I-- The soft gra.s.s beneath us gleaming, Above us the great grave sky.

And we spoke thus: "Though we have trodden Rough paths in our boyish years; And some with our sweat are sodden, And some are salt with our tears; Though we stumble still, walking blindly, Our paths shall be made all straight; We are weak, but the heavens are kindly, The skies are compa.s.sionate."

Is the clime of the old land younger, Where the young dreams longer are nursed?

With the old insatiable hunger, With the old unquenchable thirst, Are you longing, as in the old years We have longed so often in vain; Fellow-toilers still, fellow-soldiers, Though the seas have sundered us twain?

But the young dreams surely have faded!

Young dreams!--old dreams of young days-- Shall the new dream vex us as they did?

Or as things worth censure or praise?

Real toil is ours, real trouble, Dim dreams of pleasure and pride; Let the dreams disperse like a bubble, So the toil like a dream subside.

Vain toil! men better and braver Rose early and rested late, Whose burdens than ours were graver, And sterner than ours their hate.

What fair reward had Achilles?

What rest could Alcides win?

Vain toil!"Consider the lilies, They toil not neither do spin."

Nor for mortal toiling nor spinning Will the matters of mortals mend; As it was so in the beginning, It shall be so in the end.

The web that the weavers weave ill Shall not be woven aright Till the good is brought forth from evil, As day is brought forth from night.

Vain dreams! for our fathers cherish'd High hopes in the days that were; And these men wonder'd and perish'd, Nor better than these we fare; And our due at last is their due, They fought against odds and fell; "En avant, les enfants perdus!"

We fight against odds as well.

The skies! Will the great skies care for Our footsteps, straighten our path, Or strengthen our weakness? Wherefore?

We have rather incurr'd their wrath; When against the Captain of Hazor The stars in their courses fought, Did the skies shed merciful rays, or With love was the sunshine fraught?

Can they favour man? Can they wrong man?

The unapproachable skies?

Though these gave strength to the strong man, And wisdom gave to the wise; When strength is turn'd to derision, And wisdom brought to dismay, Shall we wake from a troubled vision, Or rest from a toilsome day?

Nay! I cannot tell. Peradventure Our very toil is a dream, And the works that we praise or censure, It may be, they only seem.

If so, I would fain awaken, Or sleep more soundly than so, Or by dreamless sleep overtaken, The dream I would fain forego.

For the great things of earth are small things, The longest life is a span, And there is an end to all things, A season to every man, Whose glory is dust and ashes, Whose spirit is but a spark, That out from the darkness flashes, And flickers out in the dark.

We remember the pangs that wrung us When some went down to the pit, Who faded as leaves among us, Who flitted as shadows flit; What visions under the stone lie?

What dreams in the shroud sleep dwell?

For we saw the earth pit only, And we heard only the knell.

We know not whether they slumber Who waken on earth no more, As the stars of the heights in number, As sands on the deep sea-sh.o.r.e.

Shall stiffness bind them, and starkness Enthral them, by field and flood, Till "the sun shall be turn'd to darkness, And the moon shall be turn'd to blood."

We know not!--worse may enthral men-- "The wages of sin are death"; And so death pa.s.sed upon all men, For sin was born with man's breath.

Then the labourer spent with sinning, His hire with his life shall spend; For it was so in the beginning, And shall be so in the end.

There is life in the blacken'd ember While a spark is smouldering yet; In a dream e'en now I remember That dream I had lief forget-- I had lief forget, I had e'en lief That dream with THIS doubt should die-- "IF WE DID THESE THINGS IN THE GREEN LEAF, WHAT SHALL BE DONE IN THE DRY?"

The Rhyme of Joyous Garde

Through the lattice rushes the south wind, dense With fumes of the flowery frankincense From hawthorn blossoming thickly; And gold is shower'd on gra.s.s unshorn, And poppy-fire on shuddering corn, With May-dew flooded and flush'd with morn, And scented with sweetness sickly.

The bloom and brilliance of summer days, The buds that brighten, the fields that blaze, The fruits that ripen and redden, And all the gifts of a G.o.d-sent light Are sadder things in my shameful sight Than the blackest gloom of the bitterest night, When the senses darken and deaden.

For the days recall what the nights efface, Scenes of glory and seasons of grace, For which there is no returning-- Else the days were even as the nights to me, Now the axe is laid to the root of the tree, And to-morrow the barren trunk may be Cut down--cast forth for the burning.

Would G.o.d I had died the death that day When the bishop blessed us before the fray At the shrine of the Saviour's Mother; We buckled the spur, we braced the belt, Arthur and I--together we knelt, And the grasp of his kingly hand I felt As the grasp of an only brother.

The body and the blood of Christ we shared, Knees bended and heads bow'd down and bared, We listened throughout the praying.

Eftsoon the shock of the foe we bore, Shoulder to shoulder on Severn's sh.o.r.e, Till our hilts were glued to our hands with gore, And our sinews slacken'd with slaying.

Was I far from Thy Kingdom, gracious Lord, With a shattered casque and a shiver'd sword, On the threshold of Mary's chapel?

Pardie! I had well-nigh won that crown Which endureth more than a knight's renown, When the pagan giant had got me down, Sore spent in the deadly grapple.

May his craven spirit find little grace, He was seal'd to Satan in any case, Yet the loser had been the winner; Had I waxed fainter or he less faint, Then my soul was free from this loathsome taint, I had died as a Christian knight--no saint Perchance, yet a pardon'd sinner.

But I strove full grimly beneath his weight, I clung to his poignard desperate, I baffled the thrust that followed, And writhing uppermost rose, to deal, With bare three inches of broken steel, One stroke--Ha! the headpiece crash'd piecemeal, And the knave in his black blood wallow'd.

So I lived for worse--in fulness of time, When peace for a season sway'd the clime, And spears for a s.p.a.ce were idle, Trusted and chosen of all the court, A favoured herald of fair report, I travell'd eastward, and duly brought A bride to a queenly bridal.

Pardie! 'twas a morning even as this (The skies were warmer if aught, I wis, Albeit the fields were duller; Or it may be that the envious spring, Abash'd at the sight of a fairer thing, Wax'd somewhat sadder of colouring Because of her faultless colour).

With her through the Lyonesse I rode, Till the woods with the noontide fervour glow'd, And there for a s.p.a.ce we halted, Where the intertwining branches made Cool carpets of olive-tinted shade, And the floors with fretwork of flame inlaid From leafy lattices vaulted.

And scarf and mantle for her I spread, And strewed them over the gra.s.siest bed, And under the greenest awning, And loosen'd latch and buckle, and freed From selle and housing the red roan steed, And the jennet of swift Iberian breed, That had carried us since the dawning.

The brown thrush sang through the briar and bower, All flush'd or frosted with forest flower In the warm sun's wanton glances; And I grew deaf to the song bird--blind To blossom that sweeten'd the sweet spring wind-- I saw her only--a girl reclined In her girlhood's indolent trances.

And the song and the scent and sense wax'd weak, The wild rose withered beside the cheek She poised on her fingers slender; The soft spun gold of her glittering hair Ran rippling into a wondrous snare, That flooded the round arm bright and bare, And the shoulder's silvery splendour.

The deep dusk fires in those dreamy eyes, Like seas clear-coloured in summer skies, Were guiltless of future treason; And I stood watching her, still and mute, Yet the evil seed in my soul found root, And the sad plant throve, and the sinful fruit Grew ripe in the shameful season.

Let the sin be mine as the shame was hers, In desolate days of departed years She had leisure for shame and sorrow-- There was light repentance and brief remorse, When I rode against Saxon foes or Norse, With clang of harness and clatter of horse, And little heed for the morrow.

And now she is dead, men tell me, and I, In this living death must I linger and lie Till my cup to the dregs is drunken?

I looked through the lattice worn and grim, With eyelids darken'd and eyesight dim, And weary body and wasted limb, And sinew slacken'd and shrunken.

She is dead! Gone down to the burial-place, Where the grave-dews cleave to her faultless face; Where the grave-sods crumble around her; And that bright burden of burnish'd gold, That once on those waxen shoulders roll'd, Will it spoil with the damps of the deadly mould?

Was it shorn when the church vows bound her?