Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. | Page 5

upon my finger-nail!"?He turned his large-boned face; and all his steel?Tossed into beams the lustre of the noon;?And all the shaggy horror of his locks?Rustled like locusts in a field of corn.?The meagre pupil of his shameless eye?Moved like a cormorant over a glassy sea.?He stretched his limbs, and laughed into the air,?To feel the groaning sinews of his breast,?And the long gush of his swollen arteries pause:?And, nodding, wheeled, towering in all his height.?Then, like a wind that hushes, gazed and saw?Down, down, far down upon the untroubled green?A shepherd-boy that swung a little sling.?Goliath shut his lids to drive that mote,?Which vexed the eastern azure of his eye,?Out of his vision; and stared down again.?Yet stood the youth there, ruddy in the flare?Of his vast shield, nor spake, nor quailed, gazed up,?As one might scan a mountain to be scaled.?Then, as it were, a voice unearthly still?Cried in the cavern of his bristling ear,?"His name is Death!" ... And, like the flush?That dyes Sahara to its lifeless verge,?His brows' bright brass flamed into sudden crimson;?And his great spear leapt upward, lightning-like,?Shaking a dreadful thunder in the air;?Spun betwixt earth and sky, bright as a berg?That hoards the sunlight in a myriad spires,?Crashed: and struck echo through an army's heart.?Then paused Goliath, and stared down again.?And fleet-foot Fear from rolling orbs perceived?Steadfast, unharmed, a stooping shepherd-boy?Frowning upon the target of his face.?And wrath tossed suddenly up once more his hand;?And a deep groan grieved all his strength in him.?He breathed; and, lost in dazzling darkness, prayed--?Besought his reins, his gloating gods, his youth:?And turned to smite what he no more could see.?Then sped the singing pebble-messenger,?The chosen of the Lord from Israel's brooks,?Fleet to its mark, and hollowed a light path?Down to the appalling Babel of his brain.?And like the smoke of dreaming Souffri��re?Dust rose in cloud, spread wide, slow silted down?Softly all softly on his armour's blaze.

CHARACTERS FROM SHAKESPEARE

FALSTAFF
'Twas in a tavern that with old age stooped?And leaned rheumatic rafters o'er his head--?A blowzed, prodigious man, which talked, and stared,?And rolled, as if with purpose, a small eye?Like a sweet Cupid in a cask of wine.?I could not view his fatness for his soul,?Which peeped like harmless lightnings and was gone;?As haps to voyagers of the summer air.?And when he laughed, Time trickled down those beams,?As in a glass; and when in self-defence?He puffed that paunch, and wagged that huge, Greek head,?Nosed like a Punchinello, then it seemed?An hundred widows swept in his small voice,?Now tenor, and now bass of drummy war.?He smiled, compact of loam, this orchard man;?Mused like a midnight, webbed with moonbeam snares?Of flitting Love; woke--and a King he stood,?Whom all the world hath in sheer jest refused?For helpless laughter's sake. And then, forfend!?Bacchus and Jove reared vast Olympus there;?And Pan leaned leering from Promethean eyes.?"Lord!" sighed his aspect, weeping o'er the jest,?"What simple mouse brought such a mountain forth?"
MACBETH
Rose, like dim battlements, the hills and reared?Steep crags into the fading primrose sky;?But in the desolate valleys fell small rain,?Mingled with drifting cloud. I saw one come,?Like the fierce passion of that vacant place,?His face turned glittering to the evening sky;?His eyes, like grey despair, fixed satelessly?On the still, rainy turrets of the storm;?And all his armour in a haze of blue.?He held no sword, bare was his hand and clenched,?As if to hide the inextinguishable blood?Murder had painted there. And his wild mouth?Seemed spouting echoes of deluded thoughts.?Around his head, like vipers all distort,?His locks shook, heavy-laden, at each stride.?If fire may burn invisible to the eye;?O, if despair strive everlastingly;?Then haunted here the creature of despair,?Fanning and fanning flame to lick upon?A soul still childish in a blackened hell.
BANQUO
What dost thou here far from thy native place??What piercing influences of heaven have stirred?Thy heart's last mansion all-corruptible to wake,?To move, and in the sweets of wine and fire?Sit tempting madness with unholy eyes??Begone, thou shuddering, pale anomaly!?The dark presses without on yew and thorn;?Stoops now the owl upon her lonely quest;?The pomp runs high here, and our beauteous women?Seek no cold witness--O, let murder cry,?Too shrill for human ear, only to God.?Come not in power to wreak so wild a vengeance!?Thou knowest not now the limit of man's heart;?He is beyond thy knowledge. Gaze not then,?Horror enthroned lit with insanest light!
MERCUTIO
Along an avenue of almond-trees?Came three girls chattering of their sweethearts three.?And lo! Mercutio, with Byronic ease,?Out of his philosophic eye cast all?A mere flowered twig of thought, whereat--?Three hearts fell still as when an air dies out?And Venus falters lonely o'er the sea.?But when within the further mist of bloom?His step and form were hid, the smooth child Ann?Said, "La, and what eyes he had!" and Lucy said,?"How sad a gentleman!" and Katherine,?"I wonder, now, what mischief he was at."?And these three