Goblin Market, The Princes Progress, and Other Poems | Page 7

from strand to foreign strand, 30 Yet not forget this flooded spring?And scarce-saved lambs of Westmoreland.
A BIRTHDAY
My heart is like a singing bird?Whose nest is in a watered shoot;?My heart is like an apple-tree?Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;?My heart is like a rainbow shell?That paddles in a halcyon sea;?My heart is gladder than all these?Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;?Hang it with vair and purple dyes; 10 Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,?And peacocks with a hundred eyes;?Work it in gold and silver grapes,?In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;?Because the birthday of my life?Is come, my love is come to me.
REMEMBER
Sonnet
Remember me when I am gone away,?Gone far away into the silent land;?When you can no more hold me by the hand,?Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.?Remember me when no more day by day?You tell me of our future that you planned:?Only remember me; you understand?It will be late to counsel then or pray.?Yet if you should forget me for a while?And afterwards remember, do not grieve:?For if the darkness and corruption leave?A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,?Better by far you should forget and smile?Than that you should remember and be sad.
AFTER DEATH
Sonnet
The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept?And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may?Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,?Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.?He leaned above me, thinking that I slept?And could not hear him; but I heard him say:?'Poor child, poor child:' and as he turned away?Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.?He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold?That hid my face, or take my hand in his,?Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:?He did not love me living; but once dead?He pitied me; and very sweet it is?To know he still is warm though I am cold.
AN END
Love, strong as Death, is dead.?Come, let us make his bed?Among the dying flowers:?A green turf at his head;?And a stone at his feet,?Whereon we may sit?In the quiet evening hours.
He was born in the Spring,?And died before the harvesting:?On the last warm summer day 10 He left us; he would not stay?For Autumn twilight cold and grey.?Sit we by his grave, and sing?He is gone away.
To few chords and sad and low?Sing we so:?Be our eyes fixed on the grass?Shadow-veiled as the years pass?While we think of all that was?In the long ago. 20
MY DREAM
Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night?Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.
I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled?Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:?It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;?Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled?Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,?Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.?The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend?My closest friend would deem the facts untrue; 10 And therefore it were wisely left untold;?Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.
Each crocodile was girt with massive gold?And polished stones that with their wearers grew:?But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,?Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,?Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.?All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,?But special burnishment adorned his mail?And special terror weighed upon his frown; 20 His punier brethren quaked before his tail,?Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.?So he grew lord and master of his kin:?But who shall tell the tale of all their woes??An execrable appetite arose,?He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.?He knew no law, he feared no binding law,?But ground them with inexorable jaw:?The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,?Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes, 30 While still like hungry death he fed his maw;?Till every minor crocodile being dead?And buried too, himself gorged to the full,?He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.?Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:?In sleep he dwindled to the common size,?And all the empire faded from his coat.?Then from far off a wing��d vessel came,?Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:?I know not what it bore of freight or host, 40 But white it was as an avenging ghost.?It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;?Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote?It seemed to tame the waters without force?Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:?Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,?The prudent crocodile rose on his feet?And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.
What can it mean? you ask. I answer not?For meaning, but myself must echo, What? 50 And tell it as I saw it on the spot.
SONG
Oh roses for the flush of youth,?And laurel for the perfect prime;?But pluck an ivy branch for me?Grown old before my time.
Oh violets for the grave of youth,?And bay for those