Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. | Page 7

haunts in Time's bare house an active ghost,
Enamoured of his
name, Polonius.
He moves small fingers much, and all his speech
Is
like a sampler of precisest words,
Set in the pattern of a simpleton.

His mirth floats eerily down chill corridors;
His sigh--it is a sound
that loves a keyhole;
His tenderness a faint court-tarnished thing;

His wisdom prates as from a wicker cage;
His very belly is a
pompous nought;
His eye a page that hath forgot his errand.
Yet in
his brain--his spiritual brain--
Lies hid a child's demure, small, silver
whistle
Which, to his horror, God blows, unawares,
And sets men
staring. It is sad to think,
Might he but don indeed thin flesh and
blood,

And pace important to Law's inmost room,
He would see,
much marvelling, one immensely wise,
Named Bacon, who, at sound
of his youth's step,
Would turn and call him Cousin--for the likeness.

OPHELIA
There runs a crisscross pattern of small leaves
Espalier, in a fading
summer air,
And there Ophelia walks, an azure flower,
Whom wind,
and snowflakes, and the sudden rain
Of love's wild skies have
purified to heaven.
There is a beauty past all weeping now
In that
sweet, crooked mouth, that vacant smile;
Only a lonely grey in those
mad eyes,
Which never on earth shall learn their loneliness.
And
when amid startled birds she sings lament,
Mocking in hope the long
voice of the stream,
It seems her heart's lute hath a broken string.

Ivy she hath, that to old ruin clings;
And rosemary, that sees
remembrance fade;
And pansies, deeper than the gloom of dreams;

But ah! if utterable, would this earth
Remain the base, unreal thing it
is?
Better be out of sight of peering eyes;
Out--out of hearing of
all-useless words,
Spoken of tedious tongues in heedless ears.
And
lest, at last, the world should learn heart-secrets;
Lest that sweet wolf
from some dim thicket steal;
Better the glassy horror of the stream.
HAMLET
Umbrageous cedars murmuring symphonies
Stooped in late twilight
o'er dark Denmark's Prince:
He sat, his eyes companioned with
dream--
Lustrous large eyes that held the world in view
As some
entrancèd child's a puppet show.
Darkness gave birth to the
all-trembling stars,
And a far roar of long-drawn cataracts,
Flooding
immeasurable night with sound.
He sat so still, his very thoughts took
wing,
And, lightest Ariels, the stillness haunted
With midge-like
measures; but, at last, even they
Sank 'neath the influences of his
night.
The sweet dust shed faint perfume in the gloom;
Through all
wild space the stars' bright arrows fell
On the lone Prince--the
troubled son of man--

On Time's dark waters in unearthly trouble:

Then, as the roar increased, and one fair tower
Of cloud took sky and
stars with majesty,
He rose, his face a parchment of old age,
Sorrow
hath scribbled o'er, and o'er, and o'er.

SONNETS

THE HAPPY ENCOUNTER
I saw sweet Poetry turn troubled eyes
On shaggy Science nosing in
the grass,
For by that way poor Poetry must pass
On her long
pilgrimage to Paradise.
He snuffled, grunted, squealed; perplexed by
flies,
Parched, weatherworn, and near of sight, alas,
From peering
close where very little was
In dens secluded from the open skies.
But Poetry in bravery went down,
And called his name, soft, clear,
and fearlessly;
Stooped low, and stroked his muzzle overgrown;

Refreshed his drought with dew; wiped pure and free
His eyes: and lo!
laughed loud for joy to see
In those grey deeps the azure of her own.
APRIL
Come, then, with showers; I love thy cloudy face
Gilded with
splendour of the sunbeam thro'
The heedless glory of thy locks. I
know
The arch, sweet languor of thy fleeting grace,
The windy
lovebeams of thy dwelling-place,
Thy dim dells where in azure
bluebells blow,
The brimming rivers where thy lightnings go

Harmless and full and swift from race to race.
Thou takest all young hearts captive with thine eyes;
At rumour of
thee the tongues of children ring
Louder than bees; the golden poplars
rise
Like trumps of peace; and birds, on homeward wing,
Fly
mocking echoes shrill along the skies,
Above the waves' grave
diapasoning.
SEA-MAGIC
TO R.I.

My heart faints in me for the distant sea.
The roar of London is the
roar of ire
The lion utters in his old desire
For Libya out of dim
captivity.
The long bright silver of Cheapside I see,
Her gilded
weathercocks on roof and spire
Exulting eastward in the western fire;

All things recall one heart-sick memory:--
Ever the rustle of the advancing foam,
The surges' desolate thunder,
and the cry
As of some lone babe in the whispering sky;
Ever I peer
into the restless gloom
To where a ship clad dim and loftily
Looms
steadfast in the wonder of her home.
THE MARKET-PLACE
My mind is like a clamorous market-place.
All day in wind, rain, sun,
its babel wells;
Voice answering to voice in tumult swells.

Chaffering and laughing, pushing for a place,
My thoughts haste on,
gay, strange, poor, simple, base;
This one buys dust, and that a bauble
sells:
But none to any scrutiny hints or tells
The haunting secrets
hidden in each sad face.
Dies down the clamour when the dark draws near;
Strange looms the
earth in twilight of the West,
Lonely with one sweet star serene and
clear,
Dwelling, when all this place is hushed to