The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems Part 2

WINTER DREAM

Oh wind-swept towers, Oh endlessly blossoming trees, White clouds and lucid eyes, And pools in the rocks whose unplumbed blue is pregnant With who knows what of subtlety And magical curves and limbs-- White Anadyomene and her shallow b.r.e.a.s.t.s Mother-of-pearled with light.

And oh the April, April of straight soft hair, Falling smooth as the mountain water and brown; The April of little leaves unblinded, Of rosy nipples and innocence And the blue languor of weary eyelids.

Across a huge gulf I fling my voice And my desires together: Across a huge gulf ... on the other bank Crouches April with her hair as smooth and straight and brown As falling waters.

Oh brave curve upwards and outwards.

Oh despair of the downward tilting-- Despair still beautiful As a great star one has watched all night Wheeling down under the hills.

Silence widens and darkens; Voice and desires have dropped out of sight.

I am all alone, dreaming she would come and kiss me.

THE FLOWERS

Day after day, At spring's return, I watch my flowers, how they burn Their lives away.

The candle crocus And daffodil gold Drink fire of the sunshine-- Quickly cold.

And the proud tulip-- How red he glows!-- Is quenched ere summer Can kindle the rose.

Purple as the innermost Core of a sinking flame, Deep in the leaves the violets smoulder To the dust whence they came.

Day after day At spring's return, I watch my flowers, how they burn Their lives away, Day after day ...

THE ELMS

Fine as the dust of plumy fountains blowing Across the lanterns of a revelling night, The tiny leaves of April's earliest growing Powder the trees--so vaporously light, They seem to float, billows of emerald foam Blown by the South on its bright airy tide, Seeming less trees than things beatified, Come from the world of thought which was their home.

For a while only. Rooted strong and fast, Soon will they lift towards the summer sky Their mountain-ma.s.s of clotted greenery.

Their immaterial season quickly past, They grow opaque, and therefore needs must die, Since every earth to earth returns at last.

OUT OF THE WINDOW

In the middle of countries, far from hills and sea, Are the little places one pa.s.ses by in trains And never stops at; where the skies extend Uninterrupted, and the level plains Stretch green and yellow and green without an end.

And behind the gla.s.s of their Grand Express Folk yawn away a province through, With nothing to think of, nothing to do, Nothing even to look at--never a "view"

In this d.a.m.ned wilderness.

But I look out of the window and find Much to satisfy the mind.

Mark how the furrows, formed and wheeled In a motion orderly and staid, Sweep, as we pa.s.s, across the field Like a drilled army on parade.

And here's a market-garden, barred With stripe on stripe of varied greens ...

Bright potatoes, flower starred, And the opacous colour of beans.

Each line deliberately swings Towards me, till I see a straight Green avenue to the heart of things, The glimpse of a sudden opened gate Piercing the adverse walls of fate ...

A moment only, and then, fast, fast, The gate swings to, the avenue closes; Fate laughs, and once more interposes Its barriers.

The train has pa.s.sed.

INSPIRATION

Noonday upon the Alpine meadows Pours its avalanche of Light And blazing flowers: the very shadows Translucent are and bright.

It seems a glory that nought surpa.s.ses-- Pa.s.sion of angels in form and hue-- When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the gra.s.ses Leaps a lightning of sudden blue.

Dimming the sun-drunk petals, Bright even unto pain, The gra.s.shopper flashes, settles, And then is quenched again.

SUMMER STILLNESS

The stars are golden instants in the deep Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set: The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep Seeming so motionless that I forget The hollow booming bridges, where it slides, Dark with the sad looks that it bears along, Towards a sea whose unreturning tides Ravish the sighted ships and the sailors' song.

ANNIVERSARIES

Once more the windless days are here, Quiet of autumn, when the year Halts and looks backward and draws breath Before it plunges into death.

Silver of mist and gossamers, Through-shine of noonday's gla.s.sy gold, Pale blue of skies, where nothing stirs Save one blanched leaf, weary and old, That over and over slowly falls From the mute elm-trees, hanging on air Like tattered flags along the walls Of chapels deep in sunlit prayer.

Once more ... Within its flawless gla.s.s To-day reflects that other day, When, under the bracken, on the gra.s.s, We who were lovers happily lay And hardly spoke, or framed a thought That was not one with the calm hills And crystal sky. Ourselves were nought, Our gusty pa.s.sions, our burning wills Dissolved in boundlessness, and we Were almost bodiless, almost free.

The wind has shattered silver and gold.

Night after night of sparkling cold, Orion lifts his tangled feet From where the tossing branches beat In a fine surf against the sky.

So the trance ended, and we grew Restless, we knew not how or why; And there were sudden gusts that blew Our dreaming banners into storm; We wore the uncertain crumbling form Of a brown swirl of windy leaves, A phantom shape that stirs and heaves Shuddering from earth, to fall again With a dry whisper of withered rain.

Last, from the dead and shrunken days We conjured spring, lighting the blaze Of burnished tulips in the dark; And from black frost we struck a spark Of blue delight and fragrance new, A little world of flowers and dew.

Winter for us was over and done: The drought of fluttering leaves had grown Emerald shining in the sun, As light as gla.s.s, as firm as stone.

Real once more: for we had pa.s.sed Through pa.s.sion into thought again; Shaped our desires and made that fast Which was before a cloudy pain; Moulded the dimness, fixed, defined In a fair statue, strong and free, Twin bodies flaming into mind, Poised on the brink of ecstasy.

ITALY