The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems | Page 6

burned;
And that the rain, in some strange way,
Had words of high
import to say;
And that the wind, with fitful cry,
Did some
immortal message try,
Striving to make some meaning clear

Important for my soul to hear.
But what the meaning of the rain,
And what the wisdom of the fire,

And what the warning of the wind,
And what the sea would tell, in
vain
My soul doth of itself enquire,--
And yet a meaning too doth
find:
For what am I that hears and sees
But a strange brother of all these

That blindly move, and wordless cry,
And I, mysteriously I,

Answer in blood and bone and breath
To what my gnomic kindred
saith;
And, as in me they all have part,
Translate their message to

my heart--
And know, yet know not, what they say:
Know not, yet know, the
fire's tongue
And the rain's elegiac song,
And the white language of
the spray,
And all the wind meant yesterday--
Yea! wiser he, when
the day ends,
Who shared it with those four strange friends.
THE COUNTRY GODS
I dwell, with all things great and fair:
The green earth and the lustral
air,
The sacred spaces of the sea,
Day in, day out, companion me.

Pure-faced, pure-thoughted, folk are mine
With whom to sit and
laugh and dine;
In every sunlit room is heard
Love singing, like an
April bird,
And everywhere the moonlit eyes
Of beauty guard our
paradise;
While, at the ending of the day,
To the kind country gods
we pray,
And dues of our fair living pay.
Thus, when, reluctant, to the town
I go, with country sunshine brown,

So small and strange all seems to me--
the boonfellow of the sea--

That these town-people say and be:
Their insect lives, their insect
talk,
Their busy little insect walk,
Their busy little insect stings--

And all the while the sea-weed swings
Against the rock, and the wide
roar
Rises foam-lipped along the shore.
Ah! then how good my life
I know,
How good it is each day to go
Where the great voices call,
and where
The eternal rhythms flow and flow.
In that august
companionship,
The subtle poisoned words that drip,
With guileless
guile, from friendly lip,
The lie that flits from ear to ear,
Ye shall
not speak, ye shall not hear;
Nor shall you fear your heart to say,

Lest he who listens shall betray.
The man who hearkens all day long

To the sea's cosmic-thoughted
song
Comes with purged ears to lesser speech,
And something of
the skyey reach
Greatens the gaze that feeds on space;
The starlight
writes upon his face
That bathes in starlight, and the morn
Chrisms

with dew, when day is born,
The eyes that drink the holy light

Welling from the deep springs of night.
And so--how good to catch the train
Back to the country gods again.
III
TO ONE ON A JOURNEY
Why did you go away without one word,
Wave of the hand, or token
of good-bye,
Nor leave some message for me with flower or bird,

Some sign to find you by;
Some stray of blossom on the winter road,
To know your feet had
gone that very way,
Told me the star that points to your abode,
And
tossed me one faint ray
To climb from out the night where now I
dwell--
Or, seemed it best for you to go alone
To heaven, as alone I
go to hell
Upon the four winds blown.
HER PORTRAIT IMMORTAL
Must I believe this beauty wholly gone
That in her picture here so
deathless seems,
And must I henceforth speak of her as one
Tells of
some face of legend or of dreams,
Still here and there
remembered--scarce believed,
Or held the fancy of a heart bereaved.
So beautiful she--was; ah! "was," say I,
Yet doubt her dead--I did not
see her die.
Only by others borne across the sea
Came the incredible
wild blasphemy
They called her death--as though it could be true

Of such an immortality as you!
True of these eyes that from her picture gaze,
Serene, star-steadfast,
as the heaven's own eyes;
Of that deep bosom, white as hawthorn

sprays,
Where my world-weary head forever lies;
True of these
quiet hands, so marble-cool,
Still on her lap as lilies on a pool.
Must I believe her dead--that this sweet clay,
That even from her
picture breathes perfume,
Was carried on a fiery wind away,
Or
foully locked in the worm-whispering tomb;
This casket rifled, ribald
fingers thrust
'Mid all her dainty treasure--is this dust!
Once such a dewy marvel of a girl,
Warm as the sun, and ivory as the
moon;
All gone of her, all lost--except this curl
Saved from her
head one summer afternoon,
Tied with a little ribbon from her
breast--
This only mine, and Death's now all the rest.
Must I believe it true! Bid me not go
Where on her grave the English
violets blow;
Nay, leave me--if a dream, indeed, it be--
Still in my
dream that she is somewhere she,
Silent, as was her wont. It is a lie--

She is not dead--I did not see her die.
SPRING'S PROMISES
When the spring comes again, will you be there?
Three springs I
watched and waited for your face,
And listened for your voice upon
the air;
I sought for you in many a hidden place,
Saying, "She must
be