A Dark Month | Page 3

poor man hungering stands with insatiate eyes and hands

Void of bread
Right in sight of men that feast while his famine with
no least
Crumb is fed,
Here across the garden-wall can I hear strange children call,
Watch them play,
From the windowed seat above, whence the
goodlier child I love
Is away.
Here the sights we saw together moved his fancy like a feather
To and fro,
Now to wonder, and thereafter to the sunny storm of
laughter
Loud and low--
Sights engraven on storied pages where man's tale of seven
swift ages
All was told--
Seen of eyes yet bright from heaven--for the lips that
laughed
were seven
Sweet years old.
X
Why should May remember
March, if March forget
The days that
began with December
The nights that a frost could fret?
All their griefs are done with
Now the bright months bless
Fit souls
to rejoice in the sun with,
Fit heads for the wind's caress;

Souls of children quickening
With the whole world's mirth,
Heads
closelier than field-flowers thickening
That crowd and illuminate
earth,
Now that May's call musters
Files of baby bands
To marshal in
joyfuller clusters
Than the flowers that encumber their hands.
Yet morose November
Found them no less gay,
With nought to
forget or remember
Less bright than a branch of may.
All the seasons moving
Move their minds alike
Applauding,
acclaiming, approving
All hours of the year that strike.
So my heart may fret not,
Wondering if my friend
Remember me
not or forget not
Or ever the month find end.
Not that love sows lighter
Seed in children sown,
But that life being
lit in them brighter
Moves fleeter than even our own.
May nor yet September
Binds their hearts, that yet
Remember,
forget, and remember,
Forget, and recall, and forget.
XI
As light on a lake's face moving
Between a cloud and a cloud
Till
night reclaim it, reproving
The heart that exults too loud,
The heart that watching rejoices
When soft it swims into sight

Applauded of all the voices
And stars of the windy night,
So brief and unsure, but sweeter
Than ever a moondawn smiled,

Moves, measured of no tune's metre,
The song in the soul of a child;
The song that the sweet soul singing
Half listens, and hardly hears,

Though sweeter than joy-bells ringing
And brighter than joy's own
tears;

The song that remembrance of pleasure
Begins, and forgetfulness
ends
With a soft swift change in the measure
That rings in
remembrance of friends
As the moon on the lake's face flashes,
So haply may gleam at whiles

A dream through the dear deep lashes
Whereunder a child's eye
smiles,
And the least of us all that love him
May take for a moment part

With angels around and above him,
And I find place in his heart.
XII
Child, were you kinless and lonely--
Dear, were you kin to me--
My
love were compassionate only
Or such as it needs would be.
But eyes of father and mother
Like sunlight shed on you shine:

What need you have heed of another
Such new strange love as is
mine?
It is not meet if unruly
Hands take of the children's bread
And cast
it to dogs; but truly
The dogs after all would be fed.
On crumbs from the children's table
That crumble, dropped from
above,
My heart feeds, fed with unstable
Loose waifs of a child's
light love.
Though love in your heart were brittle
As glass that breaks with a
touch,
You haply would lend him a little
Who surely would give
you much.
XIII
Here is a rough
Rude sketch of my friend,
Faint-coloured enough

And unworthily penned.

Fearlessly fair
And triumphant he stands,
And holds unaware

Friends' hearts in his hands;
Stalwart and straight
As an oak that should bring
Forth gallant and
great
Fresh roses in spring.
On the paths of his pleasure
All graces that wait
What metre shall
measure
What rhyme shall relate
Each action, each motion,
Each feature, each limb,
Demands a
devotion
In honour of him:
Head that the hand
Of a god might have blest,
Laid lustrous and
bland
On the curve of its crest:
Mouth sweeter than cherries,
Keen eyes as of Mars,
Browner than
berries
And brighter than stars.
Nor colour nor wordy
Weak song can declare
The stature how
sturdy,
How stalwart his air.
As a king in his bright
Presence-chamber may be,
So seems he in
height--
Twice higher than your knee.
As a warrior sedate
With reserve of his power,
So seems he in
state--
As tall as a flower:
As a rose overtowering
The ranks of the rest
That beneath it lie
cowering,
Less bright than their best.
And his hands are as sunny
As ruddy ripe corn
Or the
browner-hued honey
From heather-bells borne.
When summer sits proudest,
Fulfilled with its mirth,
And rapture is
loudest
In air and on earth,

The suns of all hours
That have ripened the roots
Bring forth not
such flowers
And beget not such fruits.
And well though I know it,
As fain would I write,
Child, never a
poet
Could praise you aright.
I bless you? the blessing
Were less than a jest
Too poor for
expressing;
I come to be blest,
With humble and dutiful
Heart, from above:
Bless me, O my
beautiful
Innocent love!
This rhyme in your praise
With a smile was begun;
But the goal of
his ways
Is uncovered to none,
Nor pervious till after
The limit impend;
It is not