A Century of Roundels | Page 6

all were we,
Save chance of change
that clouds or sunbeams dealt
And gleam of heaven to windward or
to lee.
The Norman downs with bright grey waves for belt
Were more for us
than inland ways might be;
A clearer sense of nearer heaven was felt
Above the sea.
III.
Cliffs and downs and headlands which the forward-hasting
Flight of
dawn and eve empurples and embrowns,
Wings of wild sea-winds
and stormy seasons wasting
Cliffs and downs,
These, or ever man was, were: the same sky frowns,
Laughs, and
lightens, as before his soul, forecasting
Times to be, conceived such
hopes as time discrowns.
These we loved of old: but now for me the blasting
Breath of death
makes dull the bright small seaward towns,
Clothes with human
change these all but everlasting

Cliffs and downs.
AUTUMN AND WINTER
I.
Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon
Between two
dates of death, while men were fain
Yet of the living light that all too
soon
Three months bade wane.
Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul
sweet as the sovereign tune
That death smote silent when he smote
again.
First went my friend, in life's mid light of noon,
Who loved the lord
of music: then the strain
Whence earth was kindled like as heaven in
June
Three months bade wane.
II.
A herald soul before its master's flying
Touched by some few moons
first the darkling goal
Where shades rose up to greet the shade,
espying
A herald soul;
Shades of dead lords of music, who control
Men living by the might
of men undying,
With strength of strains that make delight of dole.
The deep dense dust on death's dim threshold lying
Trembled with
sense of kindling sound that stole
Through darkness, and the night
gave ear, descrying

A herald soul.
III.
One went before, one after, but so fast
They seem gone hence
together, from the shore
Whence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier
passed
One went before;
One whose whole heart of love, being set of yore
On that high joy
which music lends us, cast
Light round him forth of music's radiant
store.
Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,
The mortal god he
worshipped, through the door
Wherethrough so late, his lover to the
last,
One went before.
IV.
A star had set an hour before the sun
Sank from the skies
wherethrough his heart's pulse yet
Thrills audibly: but few took heed,
or none,
A star had set.
All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,
The deep dirge of the
sunset: how should one
Soft star be missed in all the concourse met?
But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,
Whose songs are silent,
how should I forget
That ere the sunset's fiery goal was won
A star had set?
THE DEATH OF RICHARD WAGNER

I.
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with
plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke
or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light,
were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world
less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and
sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech,
whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
II.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare Take form
and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned
thoughts that share
The world's great heart -
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the
powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that
depart -
Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their
works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered
word laid bare
The world's great heart.
III.

From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the
wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and
tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell
of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god
might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a
form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message
against him, and may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,

With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of
thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn
risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
TWO PRELUDES
I.
LOHENGRIN
Love, out of the depth of things,
As a dewfall felt from above,
From
the heaven whence only springs
Love,
Love, heard from the heights thereof,
The clouds and the
watersprings,
Draws close as the clouds remove.
And the