Astrophel and Other Poems | Page 6

as the
wood
That shudders and wanes and shrinks as a shamed thing should,

In winter bright as the mail of a war-worn king
Who stands where
foes fled far from the face of him stood.
My spirit or thine is it, breath of thy life or of mine, Which fills my
sense with a rapture that casts out fear? Pan's dim frown wanes, and his
wild eyes brighten as thine, Transformed as night or as day by the
kindling year. Earth-born, or mine eye were withered that sees, mine
ear That hears were stricken to death by the sense divine, Earth-born I
know thee: but heaven is about me here.
The terror that whispers in darkness and flames in light, The doubt that
speaks in the silence of earth and sea, The sense, more fearful at noon
than in midmost night, Of wrath scarce hushed and of imminent ill to
be,
Where are they? Heaven is as earth, and as heaven to me Earth:
for the shadows that sundered them here take flight; And nought is all,
as am I, but a dream of thee.
ON THE SOUTH COAST
TO THEODORE WATTS
Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of
flowers and birds,
Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of
fluctuant sea that
the land engirds,
Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life
diviner than
lives in words,
Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim,
Change and brighten with hours that lighten and darken, girdled
with cloud or flame;
Earth's fair face in alternate grace beams,
blooms, and lowers, and
is yet the same.

Twice each day the divine sea's play makes glad with glory that
comes and goes
Field and street that her waves keep sweet, when past
the bounds of
their old repose,
Fast and fierce in renewed reverse, the foam-flecked
estuary ebbs
and flows.
Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with trunks of
the wildwood tree,
Up from shoreward, impelled far forward, by
marsh and meadow, by
lawn and lea,
Inland still at her own wild will swells, rolls, and revels
the
surging sea.
Strong as time, and as faith sublime,--clothed round with shadows
of hopes and fears,
Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive
with passion of
prayers and tears,--
Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight
hundred waxing and
waning years.
Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that
glooms and glows,
Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever
to suns and
snows,
Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a
straight stem grows.

Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or
touched or neared,
Arch and vault without stain or fault, by hands of
craftsmen we
know not reared,
Time beheld them, and time was quelled; and
change passed by them
as one that feared.
Time that flies as a dream, and dies as dreams that die with the
sleep they feed,
Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a
god indeed, Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to
man's
frail seed.
Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain
to shed:
These go by as the winds that sigh, and none takes note of
them
quick or dead:
Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here
his
pinions, and bows his head.
Still the sun that beheld begun the work wrought here of unwearied
hands
Sees, as then, though the Red King's men held ruthless rule
over
lawless lands,
Stand their massive design, impassive, pure and proud
as a virgin
stands.

Statelier still as the years fulfil their count, subserving her
sacred state,
Grows the hoary grey church whose story silence utters
and age
makes great:
Statelier seems it than shines in dreams the face
unveiled of
unvanquished fate.
Fate, more high than the star-shown sky, more deep than waters
unsounded, shines
Keen and far as the final star on souls that seek not
for charms or
signs;
Yet more bright is the love-shown light of men's hands lighted
in
songs or shrines.
Love and trust that the grave's deep dust can soil not, neither may
fear put out,
Witness yet that their record set stands fast, though years
be as
hosts in rout,
Spent and slain; but the signs remain that beat back
darkness and
cast forth doubt.
Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier
than praise dare trace,
Fair as all that the world may call most fair,
save only the sea's
own face,
Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not, live
by grace

of their own gift's grace.
Dead, their names that the night reclaims--alive, their works that
the day relumes--
Sink and stand, as in stone and sand engraven: none
may behold
their tombs:
Nights and days shall record their praise