Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. | Page 9

am by!"
He drives me
As a dog a sheep;
Like a cold stone
I cannot weep.

He lifts me
Hot from sleep
In marble hands
To where on high
The jewelled horror
Of his eye

Dares me to struggle
Or cry.
No breast wherein
To chase away
That watchful shape!
Vain,
vain to say
"Haunt not with night
The Day!"
THE MERMAIDS
Sand, sand; hills of sand;
And the wind where nothing is
Green and
sweet of the land;
No grass, no trees,
No bird, no butterfly,
But
hills, hills of sand,
And a burning sky.
Sea, sea, mounds of the sea,
Hollow, and dark, and blue,
Flashing

incessantly
The whole sea through;
No flower, no jutting root,

Only the floor of the sea,
With foam afloat.
Blow, blow, winding shells;
And the watery fish,
Deaf to the
hidden bells,
In the water splash;
No streaming gold, no eyes,

Watching along the waves,
But far-blown shells, faint bells,
From
the darkling caves.
MYSELF
There is a garden, grey
With mists of autumntide;
Under the giant
boughs,
Stretched green on every side,
Along the lonely paths,
A little child like me,
With face, with hands,
like mine,
Plays ever silently;
On, on, quite silently,
When I am there alone,
Turns not his head;
lifts not his eyes;
Heeds not as he plays on.
After the birds are flown
From singing in the trees,
When all is grey,
all silent,
Voices, and winds, and bees;
And I am there alone:
Forlornly, silently,
Plays in the evening
garden
Myself with me.
AUTUMN
There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;

And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the
lark was.
Nought gold where your hair was;
Nought warm where your hand
was;
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where
your face was.
Sad winds where your voice was;
Tears, tears where my heart was;


And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.
WINTER
Green Mistletoe!
Oh, I remember now
A dell of snow,
Frost on
the bough;
None there but I:
Snow, snow, and a wintry sky.
None there but I,
And footprints one by one,
Zigzaggedly,
Where
I had run;
Where shrill and powdery
A robin sat in the tree.
And he whistled sweet;
And I in the crusted snow
With
snow-clubbed feet
Jigged to and fro,
Till, from the day,
The
rose-light ebbed away.
And the robin flew
Into the air, the air,
The white mist through;

And small and rare
The night-frost fell
In the calm and misty dell.
And the dusk gathered low,
And the silver moon and stars
On the
frozen snow
Drew taper bars,
Kindled winking fires
In the
hooded briers.
And the sprawling Bear
Growled deep in the sky;
And Orion's hair

Streamed sparkling by:
But the North sighed low,
"Snow, snow,
more snow!"

ENVOI

TO MY MOTHER
Thine is my all, how little when 'tis told
Beside thy gold!
Thine the first peace, and mine the livelong strife;

Thine the clear dawn, and mine the night of life;

Thine the unstained belief,
Darkened in grief.
Scarce even a flower but thine its beauty and name,
Dimmed, yet the same;
Never in twilight comes the moon to me,

Stealing thro' those far woods, but tells of thee,
Falls, dear, on my wild heart,
And takes thy part.
Thou art the child, and I--how steeped in age!
A blotted page
From that clear, little book life's taken away:
How
could I read it, dear, so dark the day?
Be it all memory
'Twixt thee and me!

THE LISTENERS: 1914

THE THREE CHERRY TREES
There were three cherry trees once,
Grew in a garden all shady;

And there for delight of so gladsome a sight,
Walked a most beautiful
lady,
Dreamed a most beautiful lady.
Birds in those branches did sing,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet,

But she walking there was by far the most fair--
Lovelier than all else
within it,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet.
But blossoms to berries do come,
All hanging on stalks light and
slender,
And one long summer's day charmed that lady away,
With
vows sweet and merry and tender;
A lover with voice low and tender.
Moss and lichen the green branches deck;
Weeds nod in its paths
green and shady:
Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams,


The ghost of that beautiful lady,
That happy and beautiful lady.
OLD SUSAN
When Susan's work was done, she would sit,
With one fat guttering
candle lit,
And window opened wide to win
The sweet night air to
enter in.
There, with a thumb to keep her place,
She would read,
with stern and wrinkled face,
Her mild eyes gliding very slow

Across the letters to and fro,
While wagged the guttering candle
flame
In the wind that through the window came.
And sometimes in
the silence she
Would mumble a sentence audibly,
Or shake her
head as if to say,
"You silly souls, to act this way!"
And never a
sound from night I would hear,
Unless some far-off cock crowed
clear;
Or her old shuffling thumb should turn
Another page; and
rapt and stern,
Through her great glasses bent on me,
She would
glance into reality;
And shake her round old silvery head,

With--"You!--I thought you was in bed!"--
Only to tilt her book again,

And rooted in Romance remain.
OLD BEN
Sad is old Ben Tristlewaite,
Now his day is done,
And all his
children
Far away are gone.
He sits beneath his jasmined porch,
His stick between his knees,

His eyes