English Poems | Page 5

strange rapture of my hidden loom,?As I sit in the light of the thought of her;?And it weaveth, weaveth, day by day,?This parti-coloured roundelay;?Weaving for ease of misery,?Weaving this rhyme of my lady and me,?Weaving, weaving this warp of rhyme?For lovers in the after-time.
My lady, lover, may never be mine?In the same sweet way that thine is thine,?My lady and I may never stand?By the holy altar hand in hand,?My lady and I may never rest?Through the golden midnight breast to breast,?Nor share long days of happy light?Sweet moving in each other's sight:?Yea, even must we ever miss?The honey of the chastest kiss.
III
But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,?Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing?A pretty dalliance with grief--but try?Some metre like a sky,?Wherein to set?Stars that may linger yet?When I, thy master, shall have come to die.
Twitter and tweet
Thy carollings
Of little things,
Of fair and sweet;
For it is meet,
O robin red!
That little theme
Hath little song,
That little head
Hath little dream,
And long.

But we have starry business, such a grief?As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf,?While all the distance echoes of the wain;?Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle?Of living green that stayed with it a while,?Then to oblivious deluge plunged again!?Grief as of Alps that yearn but never reach,?Grief as of Death for Life, of Night for Day:?Such grief, O Song, how hast thou strength to teach,?How hope to make assay?
IV
ONCE
Once we met, and then there came?Like a Pentecostal flame,
A word;?And I said not,?Only thought,
She heard!?All I never say but sing,?Worshipping;?Wrapt in the hidden tongue?Of an ambiguous song.
How we met what need to say??When or where,?Years ago or yesterday,?Here or there.?All the song is--once we met,?She and I;?Once, but never to forget,?Till we die.
All the song is that we meet?Never now--?'Hast thou yet forgotten, sweet?'?'Love, hast thou?'
V
THE DAY OF THE TWO DAFFODILS
'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said;?'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she.?And so we entered in and sat at talk?Within a little parlour bowered about?With garden-noises, filled with garden scent,?As some sweet sea-shell rings with pearly chimes?And sighs out fragrance of its mother's breast.
We sat at talk, and all the afternoon?Whispered about in changing silences?Of flush and sudden light and gathering shade,?As though some Maestro drew out organ stops?Somewhere in heaven. As two within a boat?On the wide sea we sat at talk, the hours?Lapping unheeded round us as the waves.?And as such two will ofttimes pause in speech,?Gaze at high heaven and draw deep to their hearts?The infinite azure, then meet eyes again?And flash it to each other; without words?First, and then with voice trembling as trumpets?Tremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced too?As deep as the deep sea, Aeolian voice,?Voice of star-spaces, and the pine-wood's voice?In dewy mornings, Life's own awful voice:?So did We talk, gazing with God's own eyes?Into Life's deeps--ah, how they throbbed with stars!?And were we not ourselves like pulsing suns?Who, once an aeon met within the void,?So fiery close, forget how far away?Each orbit sweeps, and dream a little space?Of fiery wedding. So our hearts made answering?Lightnings all that afternoon through purple mists?Of riddled speech; and when at last the sun,?Our sentinel, made sign beneath the trees?Of coming night, and we arose and passed?Across the threshold to the flowers again,?We knew a presence walking in the grove,?And a voice speaking through the evening's cool?Unknown before: though Love had wrought no wrong,?His rune was spoken, and another rhyme?Writ in his poem by the master Life.
'Pray, pluck me some,' I said. She brought me two,?For daffodils were very fine that year,--?O very fine, but daffodils no more.
VI
WHY DID SHE MARRY HIM?
Why did she marry him? Ah, say why!?How was her fancy caught??What was the dream that he drew her by,?Or was she only bought??Gave she her gold for a girlish whim,?A freak of a foolish