The Five Books of Youth | Page 9

its heavy shell,?Fly far with love beyond the world and sea,?Out of the grasp of change, from time and twilight free.
Could the unknowing gods, waked in compassion,?Eternalize the splendour of this hour,?And from the world's frail garlands strongly fashion?An ageless Paradise, celestial bower,?Where our long-sundered souls could rise in power?To the complete fulfilment of their dream,?And never know again that years devour?Petals and light, bird-note and woodland theme,?And floods of young desire, bright as a silver stream,
Should we be happy, thou and I together,?Lying in love eternally in spring,?Watching the buds unfold that shall not wither,?Hearing the birds calling and answering,
When the leaves stir and all the meadows ring??Smelling the rich earth steaming in the sun,?Feeling between caresses the light wing?Of the wind whose gracious flight is never done,--?Should we be happy then? happy, elusive One?
But no, here in this fragile flesh abides?The secret of a measureless delight,?Hidden in dying beauty there resides?Something undying, something that takes its flight?When the dust turns to dust, and day to night,?And spring to fall, whose joys in love redeem?Eternally, life's changes and death's blight,?Even as these pale, tender petals seem?A glimpse of infinite beauty, flashed in a passing dream.
Cambridge, 1916
II
The heavy bee burdened the golden clover?Droning away the afternoon of summer,?Deep in the rippling grass I called to you?Under the sky's blue flame.?Then when the day was over,?When petals fell fresh with the falling dew,?Stepped from the dusk a radiant newcomer,?Fled by the waters of the sleeping river,?Swift to the arms of your impatient lover,?Gladly you came.?And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this for ever.
Thin rain of the saddest of Septembers?Bent the tall grasses of the sloping meadows,?But spring was with me in your slender form,?And the frail joy of spring.?Although the chilly embers?Of summer vanished into the gathering storm?And the wind clung to the overhanging shadows,?Fair seemed the spirit's desperate endeavour,?(And even fair to the spirit that remembers)?Joy on the wing!?And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this for ever.
Years, and in slow lugubrious succession?Drop from the trees the leaves' first yellowed leaders,?Autumn is in the air and in the past,?Desolate, utterly.?Sunlight and clouds in hesitant procession,?Laughter and tears, and winter at the last.?There is a battle-music in the cedars,?High on the hills of life the grasses shiver.?Hail, dead reality and living vision,?Thrice hail in memory.?And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this for ever.
Tours, 1918
III
Of days and nights under the living vine,?Memory singing from a tree has given?The plan of my buried heaven,?That I may dig therein as in a mine.
Did I call you, little Vigilant One, under the waning sun??Did you come barefooted through the dew,?Through the fine dew-drenched grass when the colours faded?Out of the sky??Who is that shadow holding over you a veil of tempest woven, Shaded with streaks of cloud and lightning on the edges??Lean nearer, I fear him, and the sigh?Of the rising wind worries the sedges,?And the cry?Of a white, long-legged bird from the marsh?Cuts through the twilight with a threat of night.?The receding voice is harsh?And echoes in my spirit.?Hark, do you hear it wailing against the hollow rocks of the hill, As it takes its lonely outgoing towards the sea??Lean nearer still.?Your silence is an ecstasy of speech,?You are the only white?Unconquered by the overwhelming frown.?Who stands behind you so impassively??Bid him begone, or let me reach?And tear away his veil. But he is gone.?Who was he? surely no comrade of the dawn,?No lover from an earthly town,?Was he then Love? or Death? . . . but he is gone.
Come, I will take your hand,--this little glade?Of stunted trees,--do you remember that??You dropped the Persian vase here on this stone,?And the white grape was spilled;?And then you cried, half angry, half afraid;?Yonder we sat?And carefully took the pieces one by one,?And tried to make them fit.?I brought another vessel filled?With a deeper wine, and there on that dark bank,?When the first star stepped from immensity,?We lay and drank....?Do you remember it?
White flame you burned against the star grey grass.?Drink deep and pass?The insufficient cup to me.
Paris, 1919
IV
You seek to hurt me, foolish child, and why??How cunningly you try?The keen edge of your words against me, yea,?The death you would not dare inflict on me,?Yet would you welcome if it tore the day?In which I pleasure from my sight.?You would be happy if that sombre night?Ravished me into darkness where there are?No flowers and no colours and no light,?Nor any joy, nor you, O morning star.
What have I done to hurt you? You have given?What I have given, and both of us have taken?Bravely and beautifully without regret.?When have I sinned against you? or forsaken?Our secret vow? Think you that I forget?One syllable of all your loveliness??What is this crime that shall not be