Georgian Poetry 1918-19 | Page 9

saw thee sunning
Thyself so lovely
there
Than the flushed flower more fair
Fallen from the wild apple
spray,
Didst rise and sprinkling sunlight with thy hand
Shadow-like

disappear in the deep-shadowy hedges
Between forsaken Buckle
Street and the sparse sedges
Of young twin-breasted Honeybourne;--
O thou, my Muse,
Scarce longer seen than the brief hues
Of winter
cloud that flames
Over the tarnished silver Thames;
So often
nearing,
As often disappearing,
With thy body's shadow brushing

My brain at midnight, lightly touching;
O yield thee, Muse, to me,

No more in dream delights and morn forgettings,
But in a ferny
hollow I know well
And thou know'st well, warm-proof'd 'gainst the
wind's frettings. ... Bring thou thyself, and there
In that warm ferny
hollow where the sun
Slants one gold beam and no light else but thine

And my eyes' happy shine--
There, O lovely Muse,
Shall on thy
shining body be begot,
Fruit of delights a many mingling in one,

Thy child and mine, a lovely shape and thought;
My child and thine,

O Muse divine!
THE WAKERS
The joyous morning ran and kissed the grass
And drew his fingers
through her sleeping hair,
And cried, 'Before thy flowers are well
awake
Rise, and the lingering darkness from thee shake.
'Before the daisy and the sorrel buy
Their brightness back from that
close-folding night,
Come, and the shadows from thy bosom shake,

Awake from thy thick sleep, awake, awake!'
Then the grass of that mounded meadow stirred
Above the Roman
bones that may not stir
Though joyous morning whispered, shouted,
sang:
The grass stirred as that happy music rang.
O, what a wondrous rustling everywhere!
The steady shadows shook
and thinned and died,
The shining grass flashed brightness back for
brightness,
And sleep was gone, and there was heavenly lightness.
As if she had found wings, light as the wind,
The grass flew, bent

with the wind, from east to west,
Chased by one wild grey cloud, and
flashing all
Her dews for happiness to hear morning call....
But even as I stepped out the brightness dimmed,
I saw the fading
edge of all delight.
The sober morning waked the drowsy herds,

And there was the old scolding of the birds.
THE BODY
When I had dreamed and dreamed what woman's beauty was,
And
how that beauty seen from unseen surely flowed,
I turned and
dreamed again, but sleeping saw no more:
My eyes shut and my mind
with inward vision glowed.
'I did not think!' I cried, seeing that wavering shape
That steadied and
then wavered, as a cherry bough in June
Lifts and falls in the
wind--each fruit a fruit of light;
And then she stood as clear as an
unclouded moon.
As clear and still she stood, moonlike remotely near;
I saw and heard
her breathe, I years and years away.
Her light streamed through the
years, I saw her clear and still, Shape and spirit together mingling night
with day.
Water falling, falling with the curve of time
Over green-hued rock,
then plunging to its pool
Far, far below, a falling spear of light;

Water falling golden from the sun but moonlike cool:
Water has the curve of her shoulder and breast,
Water falls as straight
as her body rose,
Water her brightness has from neck to still feet,

Water crystal-cold as her cold body flows.
But not water has the colour I saw when I dreamed,
Nor water such
strength has. I joyed to behold
How the blood lit her body with lamps
of fire
And made the flesh glow that like water gleamed cold,

A flame in her arms and in each finger flame,
And flame in her
bosom, flame above, below,
The curve of climbing flame in her waist
and her thighs;
From foot to head did flame into red flame flow.
I knew how beauty seen from unseen must rise,
How the body's joy
for more than body's use was made.
I knew then how the body is the
body of the mind,
And how the mind's own fire beneath the cool skin
played.
O shape that once to have seen is to see evermore,
Falling stream that
falls to the deeps of the mind,
Fire that once lit burns while aught
burns in the world,
Foot to head a flame moving in the spirit's wind!
If these eyes could see what these eyes have not seen--
The inward
vision clear--how should I look, for joy,
Knowing that beauty's self
rose visible in the world
Over age that darkens, and griefs that
destroy?
TEN O'CLOCK NO MORE [1]
The wind has thrown
The boldest of trees down.
Now disgraced it
lies,
Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies,
Naked and still.
It was the wind
So furious and blind
That scourged half England
through,
Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew
By dell and
hill,
And springing here,
The black clouds dragging near,
Against this
lonely elm
Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm
In one
wild shock.
As in the deep
Satisfaction of dark sleep
The tree her dream
dreamed on,
And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown

And her head rock.
And the wind raught
Her ageing boughs and caught
Her body fast

again.
Then in one agony of age, grief, pain,
She fell and died.
Her noble height,
Branches that loved