The Story Of A Round-House And Other Poems Part 19

Once there were merry days in Troy, Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals, The pa.s.sing chariots did annoy The sunning housewives at their wheels.

And many a lovely Trojan maid Set Trojan lads to lovely things; The game of life was n.o.bly played, They played the game like Queens and Kings.

So that, when Troy had greatly pa.s.sed In one red roaring fiery coal, The courts the Grecians overcast Became a city in the soul.

In some green island of the sea, Where now the shadowy coral grows In pride and pomp and empery The courts of old Atlantis rose.

In many a glittering house of gla.s.s The Atlanteans wandered there; The paleness of their faces was Like ivory, so pale they were.

And hushed they were, no noise of words In those bright cities ever rang; Only their thoughts, like golden birds, About their chambers thrilled and sang.

They knew all wisdom, for they knew The souls of those Egyptian Kings Who learned, in ancient Babilu, The beauty of immortal things.

They knew all beauty--when they thought The air chimed like a stricken lyre, The elemental birds were wrought, The golden birds became a fire.

And straight to busy camps and marts The singing flames were swiftly gone; The trembling leaves of human hearts Hid boughs for them to perch upon.

And men in desert places, men Abandoned, broken, sick with fears, Rose singing, swung their swords agen, And laughed and died among the spears.

The green and greedy seas have drowned That city's glittering walls and towers, Her sunken minarets are crowned With red and russet water-flowers.

In towers and rooms and golden courts The shadowy coral lifts her sprays; The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts, The shark doth haunt her hidden ways.

But, at the falling of the tide, The golden birds still sing and gleam, The Atlanteans have not died, Immortal things still give us dream.

The dream that fires man's heart to make, To build, to do, to sing or say A beauty Death can never take, An Adam from the crumbled clay.

BORN FOR NOUGHT ELSE

Born for nought else, for nothing but for this, To watch the soft blood throbbing in her throat, To think how comely sweet her body is, And learn the poem of her face by rote.

Born for nought else but to attempt a rhyme That shall describe her womanhood aright, And make her holy to the end of Time, And be my soul's acquittal in G.o.d's sight.

Born for nought else but to expressly mark The music of her dear delicious ways; Born but to perish meanly in the dark, Yet born to be the man to sing her praise.

Born for nought else: there is a spirit tells My lot's a King's, being born for nothing else.

TEWKESBURY ROAD

It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where, Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither nor why; Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush of the air, Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.

And to halt at the chattering brook, in the tall green fern at the brink Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and white; Where the shy-eyed delicate deer troop down to the brook to drink When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.

O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth, Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy past power of words; And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.

THE DEATH ROOMS

My soul has many an old decaying room Hung with the ragged arras of the past, Where startled faces flicker in the gloom, And horrid whispers set the cheek aghast.

Those dropping rooms are haunted by a death, A something like a worm gnawing a brain, That bids me heed what bitter lesson saith The blind wind beating on the window-pane.

None dwells in those old rooms: none ever can-- I pa.s.s them through at night with hidden head; Lock'd rotting rooms her eyes must never scan, Floors that her blessed feet must never tread.

Haunted old rooms: rooms she must never know, Where death-ticks knock and mouldering panels glow.

IGNORANCE

Since I have learned Love's shining alphabet, And spelled in ink what's writ in me in flame, And borne her sacred image richly set Here in my heart to keep me quit of shame;

Since I have learned how wise and pa.s.sing wise Is the dear friend whose beauty I extol, And know how sweet a soul looks through the eyes, That are so pure a window to her soul;

Since I have learned how rare a woman shows As much in all she does as in her looks, And seen the beauty of her shame the rose, And dim the beauty writ about in books;

All I have learned, and can learn, shows me this-- How scant, how slight, my knowledge of her is.

SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

THE WATCH IN THE WOOD

When Death has laid her in his quietude, And dimmed the glow of her benignant star, Her tired limbs shall rest within a wood, In a green glade where oaks and beeches are,

Where the shy fawns, the pretty fawns, the deer, With mild brown eyes shall view her spirit's husk; The sleeping woman of her will appear, The maiden Dian shining through the dusk.

And, when the stars are white as twilight fails, And the green leaves are hushed, and the winds swoon, The calm pure thrilling throats of nightingales Shall hymn her sleeping beauty to the moon.