The Listeners | Page 5

of dew,
But
unforsaking shadow dwells
Beneath this lonely yew.
And, all else lost and faded,
Only this listening head
Keeps with a
strange unanswering smile
Its secret with the dead.
NEVER MORE, SAILOR
Never more, Sailor,
Shalt thou be
Tossed on the wind-ridden,

Restless sea.
Its tides may labour;
All the world
Shake 'neath that
weight
Of waters hurled:
But its whole shock
Can only stir
Thy
dust to a quiet
Even quieter.
Thou mock'd'st at land
Who now art
come
To such a small
And shallow home;
Yet bore the sea
Full
many a care
For bones that once
A sailor's were.
And though the
grave's
Deep soundlessness
Thy once sea-deafened
Ear distress,

No robin ever
On the deep
Hopped with his song
To haunt thy
sleep.
THE WITCH
Weary went the old Witch,
Weary of her pack,
She sat her down by
the churchyard wall,
And jerked it off her back.
The cord brake, yes, the cord brake,
Just where the dead did lie,

And Charms and Spells and Sorceries
Spilled out beneath the sky.
Weary was the old Witch;

She rested her old eyes
From the
lantern-fruited yew trees,
And the scarlet of the skies;
And out the dead came stumbling,
From every rift and crack,
Silent
as moss, and plundered
The gaping pack.
They wish them, three times over,
Away they skip full soon:
Bat

and Mole and Leveret,
Under the rising moon;
Owl and Newt and Nightjar:
They take their shapes and creep,

Silent as churchyard lichen,
While she squats asleep.
All of these dead were stirring:
Each unto each did call,
'A Witch, a
Witch is sleeping
Under the churchyard wall;
'A Witch, a Witch is sleeping....'
The shrillness ebbed away;
And up
the way-worn moon clomb bright,
Hard on the track of day.
She shone, high, wan and silvery;
Day's colours paled and died:

And, save the mute and creeping worm,
Nought else was there
beside.
Names may be writ; and mounds rise;
Purporting, Here be bones:

But empty is that churchyard
Of all save stones.
Owl and Newt and Nightjar,
Leveret, Bat and Mole
Haunt and call
in the twilight,
Where she slept, poor soul.
ARABIA
Far are the shades of Arabia,
Where the Princes ride at noon,
'Mid
the verdurous vales and thickets,
Under the ghost of the moon;
And
so dark is that vaulted purple
Flowers in the forest rise
And toss
into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars
Pale in the noonday skies.
Sweet is the music of Arabia
In my heart, when out of dreams
I still
in the thin clear mirk of dawn
Descry her gliding streams;
Hear her
strange lutes on the green banks
Ring loud with the grief and delight

Of the dim-silked, dark-haired Musicians
In the brooding silence
of night.
They haunt me--her lutes and her forests;
No beauty on earth I see


But shadowed with that dream recalls
Her loveliness to me:
Still
eyes look coldly upon me,
Cold voices whisper and say--
'He is
crazed with the spell of far Arabia,
They have stolen his wits away.'
THE MOUNTAINS
Still, and blanched, and cold, and lone,
The icy hills far off from me

With frosty ulys overgrown
Stand in their sculptured secrecy.
No path of theirs the chamois fleet
Treads, with a nostril to the wind;

O'er their ice-marbled glaciers beat
No wings of eagles in my
mind--
Yea, in my mind these mountains rise,
Their perils dyed with
evening's rose;
And still my ghost sits at my eyes
And thirsts for
their untroubled snows.
QUEEN DJENIRA
When Queen Djenira slumbers through
The sultry noon's repose,

From out her dreams, as soft she lies,
A faint thin music flows.
Her lovely hands lie narrow and pale
With gilded nails, her head

Couched in its banded nets of gold
Lies pillowed on her bed.
The little Nubian boys who fan
Her cheeks and tresses clear,

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful voices
Seem afar to hear.
They slide their eyes, and nodding, say,
'Queen Djenira walks to-day

The courts of the lord Pthamasar
Where the sweet birds of Psuthys
are.'
And those of earth about her porch
Of shadow cool and grey
Their
sidelong beaks in silence lean,
And silent flit away.
NEVER-TO-BE

Down by the waters of the sea,
Reigns the King of Never-to-be.
His
palace walls are black with night;
His torches star and moonès light,

And for his timepiece deep and grave
Beats on the green
unhastening wave.
Windswept are his high corridors;
His pleasance the sea-mantled
shores;
For sentinel a shadow stands
With hair in heaven, and
cloudy hands;
And round his bed, king's guards to be,
Watch pines
in iron solemnity.
His hound is mute; his steed at will
Roams pastures deep with
asphodel;
His queen is to her slumber gone;
His courtiers mute lie,
hewn in stone;
He hath forgot where he did hide
His sceptre in the
mountain-side.
Grey-capped and muttering, mad is he--
The childless King of
Never-to-be;
For all his people in the deep
Keep everlasting fast
asleep;
And all his realm is foam and rain,
Whispering of what
comes not again.
THE DARK CHATEAU
In dreams a dark château
Stands ever open to me,
In far ravines
dream-waters flow,
Descending soundlessly;
Above its peaks the
eagle floats,
Lone in a sunless sky;
Mute are the golden woodland
throats
Of the birds flitting by.
No voice is audible. The wind
Sleeps in its peace.
No flower of the
light can find
Refuge 'neath its trees;
Only the darkening ivy climbs

Mingled with wilding rose,
And cypress, morn and evening, time's

Black shadow throws.
All vacant, and unknown;
Only the dreamer steps
From stone to
hollow