The New Morning Part 9

COMPENSATIONS

Not with a flash that rends the blue Shall fall the avenging sword.

Gently as the evening dew Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made To move with moon and tide; Yet shall not mercy be afraid Nor justice be denied.

The dreams that seemed to waste away, The kindliness forgot, Were singing in your heart today Although you knew them not.

The sun shall not forget his road, Nor the high stars their rhyme, The traveller with the heavier load Has one less hill to climb.

And, though a darker shadow fall On every struggling age, How shall it be if, after all, He share our pilgrimage?

The end we mourn is not the end.

The dust has nimble wings.

But truth and beauty have a friend At the deep heart of things.

He will not speak? What friend belies His love with idle breath?

We read it in each others' eyes, And ask no more in death.

DEAD MAN'S MORRICE

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn, One dark May night, Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din, With quaint delight, It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do, A phantom strain: _Look for me once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk, At fall of day, Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk As poor ghosts may, From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew, Or tears, or rain,...

_Look for me once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades That do return, Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades, Those nooks of fern, Only to find that, of the may they knew, No wraiths remain; _Yet they still look, as I should look for you, And look in vain._

They see those happier ghosts that waned away-- Whither, who knows?-- Ghosts that come back with music and the may, And Spring's first rose, Lover and la.s.s, to sing the old burden through, Stave and refrain: _Look for me once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

So, after death, if in that starless deep, I lose your eyes, I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep Tryst in the skies.

I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true, The old gra.s.s-grown lane.

_Look for me there, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

There, as of old, under the dreaming moon, A phantom throng Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune, A thin sweet song, Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew, Lips meet again....

_Look for me, once, lest I should look for you, And look in vain._

THE OLD FOOL IN THE WOOD

"If I could whisper you all I know,"

Said the Old Fool in the Wood, "You'd never say that green leaves grow.

You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood The Master must be in today, To think such thoughts,'

That's what you'd say."

"If I could whisper you all I've heard,"

Said the Old Fool in the fern, "You'd never say the song of a bird.

You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn One word of His joy as He pa.s.sed this way, One syllable more,'

That's what you'd say."

"If I could tell you all the rest,"

Said the Old Fool under the skies, "You'd hug your griefs against your breast And whisper with love-lit eyes, 'I am one with the sorrow that made the may, And the pulse of His heart,'

That's what you'd say."

A NEW MADRIGAL TO AN OLD MELODY

(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")

As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern, In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn; So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,-- _Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth!

Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._

Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it.

I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief.

I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,-- My fool, my lost jester, my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_!

And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?"

"Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so Soon of my Marian, so long laid in earth?

"In the years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate.

Grief was our minstrel of things that endure.

Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate.

Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure.

Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing.

Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth?

Memory and true love," he whispered, "are perishing, With Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth."

"Ah, no!" I said, "no! Since we grieve for our grief again, Touch the old strings! Let us try the old stave!

And memory may wake, like my _Shadow-of-a-Leaf_ again, Singing of hope, in the dark, by a grave."

So we sang it together--that long-forgot litany:-- _Fall, April; fall, April; bring new grief to birth.

Bring wild herb of grace, and bring deep healing dittany, For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth._