The Story Of A Round-House And Other Poems Part 14

Stretched in the hollow Of the damp bricks Perhaps her bones Freeze with the cold.

Does the dust return to dust?

Does the soul fly to heaven?

Is all vile matter, Rottenness, filthiness?

I know not. But There is something--something That I cannot explain, Something that gives us Loathing, terror, To leave the dead So alone, so wretched.

THE HARP

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO A. BeCQUER

In a dark corner of the room, Perhaps forgotten by its owner, Silent and dim with dust, I saw the harp.

How many musics slumbered in its strings, As the bird sleeps in the branches, Waiting the snowy hand That could awaken them.

Ah me, I thought, how many, many times Genius thus slumbers in a human soul, Waiting, as Lazarus waited, for a voice To bid him "Rise and walk."

SONNET

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON FRANCISCO DE QUEVEDO

I saw the ramparts of my native land, One time so strong, now dropping in decay, Their strength destroyed by this new age's way That has worn out and rotted what was grand.

I went into the fields: there I could see The sun drink up the waters newly thawed, And on the hills the moaning cattle pawed; Their miseries robbed the day of light for me.

I went into my house: I saw how spotted, Decaying things made that old home their prize.

My withered walking-staff had come to bend; I felt the age had won; my sword was rotted, And there was nothing on which I set my eyes That was not a reminder of the end.

SONNET ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE

FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF ANTONIO DE FERREIRO

That blessed sunlight that once showed to me My way to heaven more plain more certainly, And with her bright beam banished utterly All trace of mortal sorrow far from me, Has gone from me, has left her prison sad, And I am blind and alone and gone astray, Like a lost pilgrim in a desert way Wanting the blessed guide that once he had.

Thus with a spirit bowed and mind a blur I trace the holy steps where she has gone, By valleys and by meadows and by mountains, And everywhere I catch a glimpse of her.

She takes me by the hand and leads me on, And my eyes follow her, my eyes made fountains.

SONG

One sunny time in May When lambs were sporting, The sap ran in the spray And I went courting, And all the apple boughs Were bright with blossom, I picked an early rose For my love's bosom.

And then I met her friend, Down by the water, Who cried "She's met her end, That gray-eyed daughter; That voice of hers is stilled Her beauty broken."

O me, my love is killed, My love unspoken.

She was too sweet, too dear, To die so cruel, O Death, why leave me here And take my jewel?

Her voice went to the bone, So true, so ringing, And now I go alone, Winter or springing.

THE BALLAD OF SIR BORS

Would I could win some quiet and rest, and a little ease, In the cool grey hush of the dusk, in the dim green place of the trees, Where the birds are singing, singing, singing, crying aloud The song of the red, red rose that blossoms beyond the seas.

Would I could see it, the rose, when the light begins to fail, And a lone white star in the West is glimmering on the mail; The red, red pa.s.sionate rose of the sacred blood of the Christ, In the shining chalice of G.o.d, the cup of the Holy Grail.

The dusk comes gathering grey, and the darkness dims the West, The oxen low to the byre, and all bells ring to rest; But I ride over the moors, for the dusk still bides and waits, That brims my soul with the glow of the rose that ends the Quest.

My horse is spavined and ribbed, and his bones come through his hide, My sword is rotten with rust, but I shake the reins and ride, For the bright white birds of G.o.d that nest in the rose have called, And never a township now is a town where I can bide.

It will happen at last, at dusk, as my horse limps down the fell, A star will glow like a note G.o.d strikes on a silver bell, And the bright white birds of G.o.d will carry my soul to Christ, And the sight of the Rose, the Rose, will pay for the years of h.e.l.l.

SPANISH WATERS

Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are ringing in my ears, Like a slow sweet piece of music from the grey forgotten years; Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bringing weary thoughts to me Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I would that I could be.

There's a surf breaks on Los Muertos, and it never stops to roar, And it's there we came to anchor, and it's there we went ash.o.r.e, Where the blue lagoon is silent amid snags of rotting trees, Dropping like the clothes of corpses cast up by the seas.

We anch.o.r.ed at Los Muertos when the dipping sun was red, We left her half-a-mile to sea, to west of n.i.g.g.e.r Head; And before the mist was on the Cay, before the day was done, We were all ash.o.r.e on Muertos with the gold that we had won.

We bore it through the marshes in a half-score battered chests, Sinking, in the sucking quagmires, to the sunburn on our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Heaving over tree-trunks, gasping, d.a.m.ning at the flies and heat, Longing for a long drink, out of silver, in the ship's cool lazareet.

The moon came white and ghostly as we laid the treasure down, There was gear there'd make a beggarman as rich as Lima Town, Copper charms and silver trinkets from the chests of Spanish crews, Gold doubloons and double moydores, louis d'ors and portagues,

Clumsy yellow-metal earrings from the Indians of Brazil, Uncut emeralds out of Rio, bezoar stones from Guayaquil; Silver, in the crude and fashioned, pots of old Arica bronze, Jewels from the bones of Incas desecrated by the Dons.

We smoothed the place with mattocks, and we took and blazed the tree, Which marks yon where the gear is hid that none will ever see, And we laid aboard the ship again, and south away we steers, Through the loud surf of Los Muertos which is beating in my ears.

I'm the last alive that knows it. All the rest have gone their ways Killed, or died, or come to anchor in the old Mulatas Cays, And I go singing, fiddling, old and starved and in despair, And I know where all that gold is hid, if I were only there.

It's not the way to end it all. I'm old, and nearly blind, And an old man's past's a strange thing, for it never leaves his mind.

And I see in dreams, awhiles, the beach, the sun's disc dipping red, And the tall ship, under topsails, swaying in past n.i.g.g.e.r Head.

I'd be glad to step ash.o.r.e there. Glad to take a pick and go To the lone blazed coco-palm tree in the place no others know, And lift the gold and silver that has mouldered there for years By the loud surf of Los Muertos which is beating in my ears.