Last Poems | Page 4

under
With all its train forlorn;?Hues in the east assemble
And cocks crow up the morn.
The living are the living
And dead the dead will stay,?And I will sort with comrades
That face the beam of day.
XX
The night is freezing fast,
To-morrow comes December;
And winterfalls of old?Are with me from the past;
And chiefly I remember
How Dick would hate the cold.
Fall, winter, fall; for he,
Prompt hand and headpiece clever,
Has woven a winter robe,?And made of earth and sea
His overcoat for ever,
And wears the turning globe.
XXI
The fairies break their dances
And leave the printed lawn,?And up from India glances
The silver sail of dawn.
The candles burn their sockets,
The blinds let through the day,?The young man feels his pockets
And wonders what’s to pay.
XXII
The sloe was lost in flower,
The April elm was dim;?That was the lover’s hour,
The hour for lies and him.
If thorns are all the bower,
If north winds freeze the fir,?Why, ‘tis another’s hour,
The hour for truth and her.
XXIII
In the morning, in the morning,
In the happy field of hay,?Oh they looked at one another
By the light of day.
In the blue and silver morning
On the haycock as they lay,?Oh they looked at one another
And they looked away.
XXIV
EPITHALAMIUM
He is here, Urania’s son,?Hymen come from Helicon;?God that glads the lover’s heart,?He is here to join and part.?So the groomsman quits your side?And the bridegroom seeks the bride:?Friend and comrade yield you o’er?To her that hardly loves you more.
Now the sun his skyward beam?Has tilted from the Ocean stream.?Light the Indies, laggard sun:?Happy bridegroom, day is done,?And the star from ?ta’s steep?Calls to bed but not to sleep.
Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings?All desired and timely things.?All whom morning sends to roam,?Hesper loves to lead them home.?Home return who him behold,?Child to mother, sheep to fold,?Bird to nest from wandering wide:?Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.
Pour it out, the golden cup?Given and guarded, brimming up,?Safe through jostling markets borne?And the thicket of the thorn;?Folly spurned and danger past,?Pour it to the god at last.
Now, to smother noise and light,?Is stolen abroad the wildering night,?And the blotting shades confuse?Path and meadow full of dews;?And the high heavens, that all control,?Turn in silence round the pole.?Catch the starry beams they shed?Prospering the marriage bed,?And breed the land that reared your prime?Sons to stay the rot of time.?All is quiet, no alarms;?Nothing fear of nightly harms.?Safe you sleep on guarded ground,?And in silent circle round?The thoughts of friends keep watch and ward,?Harnessed angels, hand on sword.
XXV
THE ORACLES
‘Tis mute, the word they went to hear on high Dodona mountain
When winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled, And mute’s the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain,
And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old.
I took my question to the shrine that has not ceased from speaking,
The heart within, that tells the truth and tells it twice as plain; And from the cave of oracles I heard the priestess shrieking
That she and I should surely die and never live again.
Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it;
But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth your mouth no more. ‘Tis true there’s better boose than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;
And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.
/The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air. And he that stands will die for nought, and home there’s no returning./
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.
XXVI
The half-moon westers low, my love,
And the wind brings up the rain;?And wide apart lie we, my love,
And seas between the twain.
I know not if it rains, my love,
In the land where you do lie;?And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,
You know no more than I.
XXVII
The sigh that heaves the grasses
Whence thou wilt never rise?Is of the air that passes
And knows not if it sighs.
The diamond tears adorning
Thy low mound on the lea,?Those are the tears of morning,
That weeps, but not for thee.
XXVIII
Now dreary dawns the eastern light,
And fall of eve is drear,?And cold the poor man lies at night,
And so goes out the year.
Little is the luck I’ve had,
And oh, ‘tis comfort small?To think that many another lad
Has had no luck at all.
XXIX
Wake not for the world-heard thunder
Nor the chime that earthquakes toll.?Star may plot in heaven with planet,?Lightning rive the rock of granite,?Tempest tread the oakwood under:
Fear not you for flesh nor soul.?Marching, fighting, victory past,?Stretch your limbs in peace at last.
Stir not for the soldiers drilling
Nor the fever nothing cures:?Throb of drum and timbal’s rattle?Call but man alive to battle,?And the fife with death-notes filling
Screams for blood but not for yours.?Times enough you bled your best;?Sleep on now, and take your rest.
Sleep, my lad; the French are landed,
London’s burning, Windsor’s down;?Clasp your cloak of earth about you,?We