Ships in Harbour Part 3

And always there was silence at the end, For something that beguiled us with the thought Of presences returning, friend to friend.

Seeking again the fellowship they sought, Pleased that we sing old songs they still may know, Who sang with us, or listened, long ago.

SYMBOL

My faith is all a doubtful thing, Wove on a doubtful loom,-- Until there comes, each showery Spring, A cherry-tree in bloom;

And Christ who died upon a tree That death had stricken bare, Comes beautifully back to me, In blossoms, everywhere.

TO AN UNKNOWN ANCESTOR

Among the goodly folk whose name I bear, Men of the plough, the priesthood, and the mill, Whose whispered wisdom follows where I fare, With ghostly promptings that must haunt me still,-- What place was there for you, whose different fame Delighted, once, the Don Juans of the town?

The family annals have forgot your name, And time at last has hushed your gay renown.

But often in the chamber of my mind, The righteous rise and leave, their counsels done, And there is counsel of another kind,-- The room turns tavern, and there enters one I pledge as kinsman in a reeling toast, Still unregenerate and delightful ghost.

INTIMATION

Here where the sunlight makes more strangely fair Each shining street, each steeple where it stands, Something like Spring is blowing down the air, Touching the Town with light, transforming hands.

Half-shy and hesitant, a Something stays One trembling instant where the sun is sweet,-- A quickening presence on these winter ways, Haunting and swift--and gone on shining feet.

Yet, there was hint of coming daffodils, And slender spears uprising on the lawn, And apple-blossoms on the April hills ...

Only the timid prophetess was gone, Leaving a faith as gallant as the gra.s.s, How that these things would surely come to pa.s.s.

ON A DEAD MOTH

Who knows what trouble trembled in that throat, What sweet distraction for the summer moon, That lured you out, a frail, careering boat, Across the midnight's purple, deep lagoon!

Some fire of madness lit that tiny brain, Some soft propulsion clouded through your breast, And lifted you, a white and moving stain Against the dark of that disastrous quest.

The sadness of all brief and lovely things, The fine and futile pa.s.sions that we bear, Haunt the bright wreck of your too fragile wings, And win a pity for you, ended there,-- Like us, hurled backward to the final shade, From mad adventures for a moon or maid.

MYSTIC

For Something glimpsed upon the topmost hill, For Something glinting down a country lane, Where apple-blossoms shimmer white and spill A ghostly shower close along the rain,-- For Something guessed beyond the hedge or tree, Hinted and hid behind the evening star, I am made captive and am never free Of Something that is neither near nor far.

A waking through the windy shapes of gra.s.s, A trembling as of light along a bough,-- These are for footprints and a way to pa.s.s, To follow after and to make a vow,-- To seek past glamours that are hourly spent, And find but fainting lights down ways she went.

LEVIATHANS

You who have seen the foam upon bright wrecks Of stately ships that never come to port, Where sea-things crawl upon those sunken decks, And fishes through those cabins take their sport,---- There where at last the gilded, gay saloon Turns watery cavern for the sp.a.w.n of seas, And spars, once splendid, rot beneath the moon That once was glad to sail with such as these,--

Let never word of pity pa.s.s your lips: For these were proud in ways you cannot know, And pride is slow to die in ruined ships Who can but dream that some day they will go, Their wounds all healed, their clean strength whole again, Monarch of seas, marvel of moons and men.

INVIOLATE

I would be dumb before the evening star, And no light word should stir upon my lips For autumn dusks where dying embers are, For evening seas and slow, returning ships.

I would be hushed before the face I love, Rising in star-like quiet close to mine, Lest all the beauty thought is dreaming of Be rudely shaken and be spilled like wine.

For present loveliness there is no speech, A word may wrong a flower or a face, And stars that swim beyond our stuttering reach Are safer in some golden, silent place....

Only when these are broken, or pa.s.s by, Wonder and worship speak ... or sing ... or cry.

Ma.n.u.sCRIPTS

As some monastic scrivener in his cell, Sensing a chill along the stony crypt, Might labour yet more gorgeously to spell The final, splendid entries of his script,-- So with bright rubrics has the Autumn writ A coloured chronicle of things that pa.s.s, Thumbing a yellow parchment that is lit With brief, illumined letters through the gra.s.s.

With what a prodigality of stains, Is fashioned this last entry and design, By one aware of cold, approaching rains,-- Who senses, through each iridescent line, A presence at the shoulder--chills and blights, Winds that will snuff his letters out like lights.

IN AN OLD BURIAL GROUND

I have imagined ... but I have not known What swift, recaptured seasons, lost of late, What long-regretted Aprils yet may wait For each of these beyond his crypted stone.

Some Springtime that was all too quickly blown, Some Summer that was roses in his heart, May wake again in every sweetest part, And show themselves familiarly his own.

It well may be there are eternal days For every frailest thing, beyond this door, Where roses are not ruined any more, And April with her jonquils stays and stays, Outlingering walls of granite where they blow ...