Georgian Poetry 1918-19 | Page 7

to kiss,
In starless
darkness peace to win,
Even on that secret world from this
Her
twilight enters in.
THE TRYST
Flee into some forgotten night and be
Of all dark long my

moon-bright company:
Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come,

There, out of all remembrance, make our home:
Seek we some close
hid shadow for our lair,
Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair

Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound,
Nods till the piteous
Trump of Judgment sound.
Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea

Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me,
There of your beauty we
would joyance make--
A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake:

Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire,
Cresting steep Leo, or the
heavenly Lyre,
Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space,
Some eyrie
hostel, meet for human grace,
Where two might happy be--just you
and I--
Lost in the uttermost of Eternity.
Think! in Time's smallest
clock's minutest beat
Might there not rest be found for wandering feet?

Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of Helen's dream,
Silence wherein to
sing love's requiem?
No, no. Nor earth, nor air, nor fire, nor deep
Could lull poor mortal
longingness asleep.
Somewhere there nothing is; and there lost Man

Shall win what changeless vague of peace he can.
THE LINNET
Upon this leafy bush
With thorns and roses in it,
Flutters a thing of
light,
A twittering linnet.
And all the throbbing world
Of dew and
sun and air
By this small parcel of life
Is made more fair;
As if
each bramble-spray
And mounded gold-wreathed furze,
Harebell
and little thyme,
Were only hers;
As if this beauty and grace
Did
to one bird belong,
And, at a flutter of wing,
Might vanish in song.
THE VEIL
I think and think: yet still I fail--
Why must this lady wear a veil?

Why thus elect to mask her face
Beneath that dainty web of lace?

The tip of a small nose I see,
And two red lips, set curiously
Like
twin-born berries on one stem,
And yet, she has netted even them.


Her eyes, 'tis plain, survey with ease
Whate'er to glance upon they
please.
Yet, whether hazel, gray, or blue,
Or that even lovelier lilac
hue,
I cannot guess: why--why deny
Such beauty to the passer-by?

Out of a bush a nightingale
May expound his song; from 'neath that
veil
A happy mouth no doubt can make
English sound sweeter for
its sake.
But then, why muffle in like this
What every blossomy
wind would kiss?
Why in that little night disguise
A daybreak face,
those starry eyes?
THE THREE STRANGERS
Far are those tranquil hills,
Dyed with fair evening's rose;
On urgent,
secret errand bent,
A traveller goes.
Approach him strangers three,
Barefooted, cowled; their eyes
Scan
the lone, hastening solitary
With dumb surmise.
One instant in close speech
With them he doth confer:
God-sped, he
hasteneth on,
That anxious traveller....
I was that man--in a dream:
And each world's night in vain
I patient
wait on sleep to unveil
Those vivid hills again.
Would that they three could know
How yet burns on in me

Love--from one lost in Paradise--
For their grave courtesy.
THE OLD MEN
Old and alone, sit we,
Caged, riddle-rid men;
Lost to earth's
'Listen!' and 'See!'
Thought's 'Wherefore?' and 'When?'
Only far memories stray
Of a past once lovely, but now
Wasted and
faded away,
Like green leaves from the bough.
Vast broods the silence of night,
The ruinous moon
Lifts on our

faces her light,
Whence all dreaming is gone.
We speak not; trembles each head;
In their sockets our eyes are still;

Desire as cold as the dead;
Without wonder or will.
And One, with a lanthorn, draws near,
At clash with the moon in our
eyes:
'Where art thou?' he asks: 'I am here,'
One by one we arise.
And none lifts a hand to withhold
A friend from the touch of that foe:

Heart cries unto heart, 'Thou art old!'
Yet reluctant, we go.
FARE WELL
When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,

Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will
fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory
fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?
Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,

May those loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the
rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller's Joy entwine,
And as
happy children gather
Posies once mine.
Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy
sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost
blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from
those who loved them
In other days.

JOHN DRINKWATER
DEER
Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer.
They are spirits of wild
sense. Nobody near
Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live,


Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive
Treading as in jungles free
leopards do,
Printless as evelight, instant as dew.
The great kine are
patient, and home-coming sheep
Know our bidding. The fallow deer
keep
Delicate and far their counsels wild,
Never to be folded
reconciled
To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are;
Lightfoot,
and swift, and unfamiliar,
These you may not hinder, unconfined

Beautiful flocks of the mind.
MOONLIT APPLES
At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,
And the skylight
lets the moonlight in, and those
Apples are deep-sea apples of green.
There goes
A cloud on the moon in