The Five Books of Youth | Page 2

leaves rain down upon the forest pond,
An elfin tarn
green-shadowed in the fern;
Nine yews ensomber the wet bank,
beyond
The autumn branches of the beeches burn
With yellow
flame and red amid the green,
And patches of the darkening sky
between.
This is an ancient country; in this wood
The Druids raised their
sacrificial stones;
Here the vast timeless silences still brood
Though
the cold wind's October monotones
Fan the enchanted senses with the
dread
Of holiness long-past and beauty dead.
How far beyond this glade the day-world turns
Upon its pivot of
reward and chance;
Farther than the first star that palely burns
Over
the forest's meditative trance.
First star of evening, last star of day,

The one grows clear, the other dies away.
Will they come back who once beneath these trees
Invoked their
long-forgotten gods with tears,
Who heard the sob of the same

twilight breeze
Blow down the vistas of remembered years,
Beside
the tarn's black waters where they stood
Close to their god, far from
the multitude?
I watch, but they are long ago departed,
Far as the world of day, or as
the star;
The forest loved her priests, and tranquil-hearted
They
stole away in dim procession, far
Down the unechoing aisles, beyond
recalling;
The moss grows on the stones, the leaves are falling.
In vain I listen for their hissing speech,
And seek white holy hands
upon the air,
They told their worship to the yew and beech,
And left
them with the secret, trembling there,
Nor shall they come at
midnight nor at dawn;
The gods are dead; the votaries are gone.
A form floats toward me down the corridor
Of mighty trees,
half-visioned through the haze,
And stands beside me on that empty
shore;
So rest we there, and wonderingly gaze.
By the dead water,
under the deep boughs,
My Love and I renew our ancient vows.
MORET-SUR-LOING, 1918
II - PROTHALAMION
The faded turquoise of the sky
Darkens into ocean green
Flecked
palely where the stars will rise.
A single bough between
The
spacious colour and your half-closed eyes
Hangs out its hazy traceries.

Still, like a drowsy god you lie,
My fair unbidden guest,
Your
white hands crossed beneath your head,
Your lips curved strangely
mute with peace,
Your hair moved lightly by the breeze.
A glow is
shed
Warm on your face from the last rays that push
From the
dying sun into the green vault of the west.
This is your bridal night; the golden bush
Is heavy with the fruits that
you will taste,
Full ripened in desire.
You who have hoarded youth,
this is your hour of waste,
Your hour of squandering and drunkenness,


Of wine-dashed lips and generous caress,
Of brows thorn-crowned
and bodies crucified,--
O bid me to the feast.
Tomorrow when the hills are washed with fire,
Your door ajar against
the flashing East,--
O fling it wide.
PARIS, 1919
III - MONTMARTRE
A rocky hill above the town,
Grey as the soul of silence,
Except
where two white strutting domes
Stand aloof and frown
On the
huddled homes
Of world-wept love and pain,--
They do not heed
that tall disdain,
But sleep, grey, under the stars and the rain.
A woman, young, but old in love,
Carried her child across the square;

Her face was a dim drifting flame
To which her pyre of hair
Was
a column of golden smoke.
Her eyes half told the secrets of
Gay sins that no regret defiled;

There her heart broke
In the little question between her eyes.

Hearing the trees in the square she smiled,
And sang to the child.
So passed by in the narrow street
That climbs the steep rock over the
town,
Love and the west wind in the stars;
The wind and the sound
of those lagging feet
Died like forgotten tears.
I waited till the stars went down,
And I
wrote these lines on a cloud to greet
The dawn on the crystal stairs.
PARIS, 1919
IV - A LETTER
Dear boy, what can this stranger mean to you,
Blown to your country
by unbridled chance?
That he should drink the morn's first cup of

dew
Fresh from the spring, and quicken that grave glance
Wherein
as rising tides on hazy shores
Rise the new flames and colours of
romance?
Ah, wise and young, the world shall use your youth
And fling you
shorn of beauty to despair,
The sum of all that fascinating truth

That you have gleaned, hands tangled in brown hair,
Eyes straining
into contemplative fires,--
This truth shall not seem truth when trees
are bare.
The hunger of the soul, the watcher left
To brood the nearness of his
own decay,
Dully remarking the slow shameless theft
Of the old
holiness from day to day,
How youth grows tarnished, wisdom
changes false,--
Till one bends near to steal your life away.
Yet who am I to turn aside the hand
Outstretched so friendly and so
humbly proud,
Heaped up with beauty from the sunrise land
Of
hearts adventurous and heads unbowed?
Only, look not at me with
changing eyes
When we must separate amid the crowd.
TOURS, 1918
V - ESTHER DANCING
Speak not nor stir. Here music is alive,
Woven from those swift
fingers, strong and light,
Marching across those singing hands, or
shed
Slowly, like echoes down the muffled night,
Or beautifully
translated, note by