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

three small beds the dark hours' while
In a house in the
Island of Lone
Rose the snoring of Lallerie, Alliolyle,
The snoring
of Muziomone.
But soon as ever came peep of sun
On coral and feathery tree,

Three night-capped dwarfs to the surf would run
And soon were

a-bob in the sea.
At six they went fishing, at nine they snared
Young foxes in the dells,

At noon on sweet berries and honey they fared,
And blew in their
twisted shells.
Dark was the sea they gambolled in,
And thick with silver fish,

Dark as green glass blown clear and thin
To be a monarch's dish.
They sate to sup in a jasmine bower,
Lit pale with flies of fire,

Their bowls the hue of the iris-flower,
And lemon their attire.
Sweet wine in little cups they sipped,
And golden honeycomb
Into
their bowls of cream they dipped,
Whipt light and white as foam.
Now Alliolyle, where the sand-flower blows,
Taught three old apes to
sing--
Taught three old apes to dance on their toes
And caper
around in a ring.
They yelled them hoarse and they croaked them sweet,
They twirled
them about and around,
To the noise of their voices they danced with
their feet,
They stamped with their feet on the ground.
But down to the shore skipped Lallerie,
His parrot on his thumb,

And the twain they scotched in mockery,
While the dancers go and
come.
And, alas! in the evening, rosy and still,
Light-haired Lallerie

Bitterly quarrelled with Alliolyle
By the yellow-sanded sea.
The rising moon swam sweet and large
Before their furious eyes,

And they rolled and rolled to the coral marge
Where the surf for ever
cries.
Too late, too late, comes Muziomone:
Clear in the clear green sea

Alliolyle lies not alone,
But clasped with Lallerie.

He blows on his shell plaintiff notes;
Ape, parraquito, bee
Flock
where a shoe on the salt wave floats,--
The shoe of Lallerie.
He fetches nightcaps, one and nine,
Grey apes he dowers three,
His
house as fair as the Malmsey wine
Seems sad as cypress-tree.
Three bowls he brims with sweet honeycomb
To feast the bumble
bees,
Saying, "O bees, be this your home,
For grief is on the seas!"
He sate him lone in a coral grot,
At the flowing in of the tide;
When
ebbed the billow, there was not,
Save coral, aught beside.
So hairy apes in three white beds,
And nightcaps, one and nine,
On
moonlit pillows lay three heads
Bemused with dwarfish wine.
A tomb of coral, the dirge of bee,
The grey apes' guttural groan
For
Alliolyle, for Lallerie,
For thee, O Muziomone!
SLEEPING BEAUTY
The scent of bramble fills the air,
Amid her folded sheets she lies,

The gold of evening in her hair,
The blue of morn shut in her eyes.
How many a changing moon hath lit
The unchanging roses of her
face!
Her mirror ever broods on it
In silver stillness of the days.
Oft flits the moth on filmy wings
Into his solitary lair;
Shrill
evensong the cricket sings
From some still shadow in her hair.
In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood,
She sleeps in lovely loneliness,

Half-folded like an April bud
On winter-haunted trees.
THE HORN
Hark! is that a horn I hear,
In cloudland winding sweet--
And
bell-like clash of bridle-rein,
And silver-shod light feet?

Is it the elfin laughter
Of fairies riding faint and high,
Beneath the
branches of the moon,
Straying through the starry sky?
Is it in the globèd dew
Such sweet melodies may fall?
Wood and
valley--all are still,
Hushed the shepherd's call.
CAPTAIN LEAN
Out of the East a hurricane
Swept down on Captain Lean--
That
mariner and gentleman
Will never again be seen.
He sailed his ship against the foes
Of his own country dear,
But
now in the trough of the billows
An aimless course doth steer.
Powder was violets to his nostrils,
Sweet the din of the fighting-line,

Now he is flotsam on the seas,
And his bones are bleached with
brine.
The stars move up along the sky,
The moon she shines so bright,

And in that solitude the foam
Sparkles unearthly white.
This is the tomb of Captain Lean,
Would a straiter please his soul?
I
trow he sleeps in peace,
Howsoever the billows roll!
THE PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR
His brow is seamed with line and scar;
His cheek is red and dark as
wine;
The fires as of a Northern star
Beneath his cap of sable shine.
His right hand, bared of leathern glove,
Hangs open like an iron gin,

You stoop to see his pulses move,
To hear the blood sweep out and
in.
He looks some king, so solitary
In earnest thought he seems to stand,

As if across a lonely sea
He gazed impatient of the land.

Out of the noisy centuries
The foolish and the fearful fade;
Yet burn
unquenched these warrior eyes,
Time hath not dimmed, nor death
dismayed.
HAUNTED
From out the wood I watched them shine,--
The windows of the
haunted house,
Now ruddy as enchanted wine,
Now dark as
flittermouse.
There went a thin voice piping airs
Along the grey and crooked
walks,--
A garden of thistledown and tares,
Bright leaves, and giant
stalks.
The twilight rain shone at its gates,
Where long-leaved grass in
shadow grew;
And black in silence to her mates
A voiceless raven
flew.
Lichen and moss the lone stones