The Home Book of Verse Volume Ii Part 176

XLIII Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave!

Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave; Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: In hearing of the ocean, and in sight Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white.

If I the death of Love had deeply planned, I never could have made it half so sure, As by the unblest kisses which upbraid The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade?

'Tis morning: but no morning can restore What we have forfeited. I see no sin: The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, G.o.d wot, No villain need be! Pa.s.sions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.

XLIX He found her by the ocean's moaning verge, Nor any wicked change in her discerned; And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge.

She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry.

She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed.

She dared not say, "This is my breast: look in."

But there's a strength to help the desperate weak.

That night he learned how silence best can speak The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin.

About the middle of the night her call Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.

"Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!" she said, Lethe had pa.s.sed those lips, and he knew all.

L Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: The union of this ever-diverse pair!

These two were rapid falcons in a snare, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.

Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers: But they fed not on the advancing hours: Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.

Then each applied to each that fatal knife, Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life!-- In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin line upon the sh.o.r.e!

George Meredith [1828-1909]

LOVE IN THE WINDS

When I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night, Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee That rides out Fate and welcomes G.o.ds to fight.

Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather,-- No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills.

Richard Hovey [1864-1900]

"OH! DEATH WILL FIND ME"

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land! There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing, And tremble. And I shall know that you have died.

And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream, Pa.s.s, light as ever, through the lightless host, Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam-- Most individual and bewildering ghost!-- And turn, and toss your brown delightful head Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

THE BUSY HEART

Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.

(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted) I'll think of Love in books, Love without end; Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; And the young heavens, forgetful after rain; And evening hush, broken by homing wings; And Song's n.o.bility and Wisdom holy, That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, One after one, like tasting a sweet food.

I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

THE HILL

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely gra.s.s.

You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pa.s.s; Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, When we are old, are old...." "And when we die All's over that is ours; and life burns on Through other lovers, other lips," said I, --"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"

"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.

Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said; "We shall go down with unreluctant tread Rose-crowned into the darkness!"... Proud we were, And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.

--And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

SONNETS From "Sonnets to Miranda"

Daughter of her whose face, and lofty name Prenuptial, of old States and Cities speak, Where lands of wine look north to peak on peak Of the overwatching Alps: through her, you claim Kinship with vanished Power, unvanished Fame; And midst a world grown colorless and bleak I see the blood of Doges in your cheek, And in your hair the t.i.tian tints of flame.

Daughter of England too, you first drew breath Where our coy Springs to our coy Summers yield; And you descend from one whose lance and shield Were with the grandsire of Elizabeth, When the Plantagenet saw the avenger Death Toward him spurring over Bosworth field.

II If you had lived in that more stately time When men remembered the great Tudor queen, To n.o.blest verse your name had wedded been, And you for ever crowned with golden rhyme.

If, mid Lorenzo's Florence, made sublime By Art's Re-Birth, you had moved, a Muse serene, The mightiest limners had revealed your mien To all the ages and each wondering clime.

Fled are the singers that from language drew Its virgin secrets; and in narrow s.p.a.ce The mightiest limners sleep: and only He, The Eternal Artist, still creates anew That which is fairer than all song--the grace That takes the world into captivity.

III I dare but sing of you in such a strain As may beseem the wandering harper's tongue, Who of the glory of his Queen hath sung, Outside her castle gates in wind and rain.

She, seated mid the n.o.blest of her train, In her great halls with pictured arras hung, Hardly can know what melody hath rung Through the forgetting night, and rung in vain.

He, with one word from her to whom he brings The loyal heart that she alone can sway, Would be made rich for ever; but he sings Of queenhood too aloof, too great, to say "Sing on, sing on, O minstrel"--though he flings His soul to the winds that whirl his songs away.

V I cast these lyric offerings at your feet, And ask you but to fling them not away: There suffer them to rest, till even they, By happy nearness to yourself, grow sweet.

He that hath shaped and wrought them holds it meet That you be sung, not in some artless way, But with such pomp and ritual as when May Sends her full choir, the throned Morn to greet.

With something caught from your own lofty air, With something learned from your own highborn grace, Song must approach your presence; must forbear All light and easy accost; and yet abase Its own proud spirit in awe and reverence there, Before the Wonder of your form and face.

VI I move amid your throng, I watch you hold Converse with many who are n.o.ble and fair, Yourself the n.o.blest and the fairest there, Reigning supreme, crowned with that living gold.

I talk with men whose names have been enrolled In England's book of honor; and I share With these one honor--your regard; and wear Your friendship as a jewel of worth untold.

And then I go from out your sphered light Into a world which still seems full of You.

I know the stars are yonder, that possess Their ancient seats, heedless what mortals do; But I behold in all the range of Night Only the splendor of your loveliness.

VIII If I had never known your face at all, Had only heard you speak, beyond thick screen Of leaves, in an old garden, when the sheen Of morning dwelt on dial and ivied wall, I think your voice had been enough to call Yourself before me, in living vision seen, So pregnant with your Essence had it been.

So charged with You, in each soft rise and fall.

At least I know, that when upon the night With chanted word your voice lets loose your soul, I am pierced, I am pierced and cloven, with Delight That hath all Pain within it, and the whole World's tears, all ecstasy of inward sight, And the blind cry of all the seas that roll.

William Watson [1858-1935]