The Poems of William Watson Part 9

THE ALPS

Adieu, white brows of Europe! sovereign brows, That wear the sunset for a golden tiar.

With me in memory shall your phantoms house For ever, whiter than yourselves, and higher.

THE CATHEDRAL SPIRE

It soars like hearts of hapless men who dare To sue for gifts the G.o.ds refuse to allot; Who climb for ever toward they know not where, Baffled for ever by they know not what.

AN EPITAPH

His friends he loved. His fellest earthly foes-- Cats--I believe he did but feign to hate.

My hand will miss the insinuated nose, Mine eyes the tail that wagg'd contempt at Fate.

THE METROPOLITAN UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

Here were a goodly place wherein to die;-- Grown latterly to sudden change averse, All violent contrasts fain avoid would I On pa.s.sing from this world into a worse.

TO A SEABIRD

Fain would I have thee barter fates with me,-- Lone loiterer where the sh.e.l.ls like jewels be, Hung on the fringe and frayed hem of the sea.

But no,--'twere cruel, wild-wing'd Bliss! to thee.

ON DuRER'S _MELENCOLIA_

What holds her fixed far eyes nor lets them range?

Not the strange sea, strange earth, or heav'n more strange; But her own phantom dwarfing these great three, More strange than all, more old than heav'n, earth, sea.

TANTALUS

He wooes for ever, with foil'd lips of drouth, The wave that wearies not to mock his mouth.

'Tis Lethe's; they alone that tide have quaff'd Who never thirsted for the oblivious draught.

A MAIDEN'S EPITAPH

She dwelt among us till the flowers, 'tis said, Grew jealous of her: with precipitate feet, As loth to wrong them unawares, she fled.

Earth is less fragrant now, and heaven more sweet.

WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE

TO JAMES BROMLEY

WITH "WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE"

Ere vandal lords with l.u.s.t of gold accurst Deface each hallowed hillside we revere-- Ere cities in their million-throated thirst Menace each sacred mere-- Let us give thanks because one nook hath been Unflooded yet by desecration's wave, The little churchyard in the valley green That holds our Wordsworth's grave.

'Twas there I plucked these elegiac blooms, There where he rests 'mid comrades fit and few, And thence I bring this growth of cla.s.sic tombs, An offering, friend, to you-- You who have loved like me his simple themes, Loved his sincere large accent n.o.bly plain, And loved the land whose mountains and whose streams Are lovelier for his strain.

It may be that his manly chant, beside More dainty numbers, seems a rustic tune; It may be, thought has broadened since he died Upon the century's noon; It may be that we can no longer share The faith which from his fathers he received; It may be that our doom is to despair Where he with joy believed;--

Enough that there is none since risen who sings A song so gotten of the immediate soul, So instant from the vital fount of things Which is our source and goal; And though at touch of later hands there float More artful tones than from his lyre he drew, Ages may pa.s.s ere trills another note So sweet, so great, so true.

WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE

I

The old rude church, with bare, bald tower, is here; Beneath its shadow high-born Rotha flows; Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near, And with cool murmur lulling his repose

Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near.

His hills, his lakes, his streams are with him yet.

Surely the heart that read her own heart clear Nature forgets not soon: 'tis we forget.

We that with vagrant soul his fixity Have slighted; faithless, done his deep faith wrong; Left him for poorer loves, and bowed the knee To misbegotten strange new G.o.ds of song.

Yet, led by hollow ghost or beckoning elf Far from her homestead to the desert bourn, The vagrant soul returning to herself Wearily wise, must needs to him return.

To him and to the powers that with him dwell:-- Inflowings that divulged not whence they came; And that secluded spirit unknowable, The mystery we make darker with a name;

The Somewhat which we name but cannot know, Ev'n as we name a star and only see His quenchless flashings forth, which ever show And ever hide him, and which are not he.

II

Poet who sleepest by this wandering wave!

When thou wast born, what birth-gift hadst thou then?

To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave, The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men?

Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine; Not Shakespeare's cloudless, boundless human view; Not Sh.e.l.ley's flush of rose on peaks divine; Nor yet the wizard twilight Coleridge knew.

What hadst thou that could make so large amends For all thou hadst not and thy peers possessed, Motion and fire, swift means to radiant ends?-- Thou hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest.