The Nuts of Knowledge | Page 5

thee,
Trembling I waken to a
mystery,
How through one door we go to life or death
By spirit
kindled or the sensual breath.
Image of beauty, when my way I go;
No single joy or sorrow do I
know:
Elate for freedom leaps the starry power,
The life which
passes mourns its wasted hour.
And, ah, to think how thin the veil that lies
Between the pain of hell
and paradise!
Where the cool grass my aching head embowers
God
sings the lovely carol of the flowers.
THE GREY EROS
We are desert leagues apart;
Time is misty ages now
Since the
warmth of heart to heart
Chased the shadows from my brow.
Oh, I am so old, meseems
I am next of kin to Time,
The historian of
her dreams
From the long forgotten prime.
You have come a path of flowers.
What a way was mine to roam!


Many a fallen empire's towers,
Many a ruined heart my home.
No, there is no comfort, none;
All the dewy tender breath
Idly falls
when life is done
On the starless brow of death.
Though the dream of love may tire,
In the ages long agone
There
were ruby hearts of fire--
Ah, the daughters of the dawn!
Though I am so feeble now,
I remember when our pride
Could not
to the Mighty bow;
We would sweep His stars aside.
Mix thy youth with thoughts like those--
It were but to wither thee,

But to graft the youthful rose
On the old and flowerless tree.
Age is no more near than youth
To the sceptre and the crown.
Vain
the wisdom, vain the truth;
Do not lay thy rapture down.
THE MEMORY OF EARTH
In the wet dusk silver-sweet,
Down the violet scented ways,
As I
moved with quiet feet
I was met by mighty days.
On the hedge the hanging dew
Glassed the eve and stars and skies;

While I gazed a madness grew
Into thundered battle cries.
Where the hawthorn glimmered white,
Flashed the spear and fell the
stroke--
Ah, what faces pale and bright
Where the dazzling battle
broke!
There a hero-hearted queen
With young beauty lit the van.
Gone!
the darkness flowed between
All the ancient wars of man.
While I paced the valley's gloom
Where the rabbits pattered near,

Shone a temple and a tomb
With the legend carven clear:
'Time put by a myriad fates
That her day might dawn in glory.


Death made wide a million gates
So to close her tragic story.'
BY THE MARGIN OF THE GREAT DEEP
When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies, All its
vaporous sapphire, violet glow, and silver gleam, With their magic
flood me through the gateway of the eyes; I am one with the twilight's
dream.
When the trees and skies and fields are one in dusky mood, Every heart
of man is wrapt within the mother's breast: Full of peace and sleep and
dreams in the vasty quietude, I am one with their hearts at rest.
From our immemorial joys of hearth and home and love
Strayed
away along the margin of the unknown tide,
All its reach of soundless
calm can thrill me far above Word or touch from the lips beside.
Aye, and deep and deep and deeper let me drink and draw, From the
olden fountain more than light or peace or dream, Such primeval being
as o'erfills the heart with awe,
Growing one with its silent stream.
THREE COUNSELLORS
It was the fairy of the place,
Moving within a little light,
Who
touched with dim and shadowy grace
The conflict at its fever height.
It seemed to whisper 'Quietness,'
Then quietly itself was gone:
Yet
echoes of its mute caress
Were with me as the years went on.
It was the warrior within
Who called 'Awake, prepare for fight:
Yet
lose not memory in the din:
Make of thy gentleness thy might:
'Make of thy silence words to shake
The long-enthroned kings of
earth:
Make of thy will the force to break
Their towers of
wantonness and mirth.'
It was the wise all-seeing soul
Who counselled neither war nor peace:


'Only be thou thyself that goal
In which the wars of time shall
cease.'
DESIRE
With thee a moment! Then what dreams have play!
Traditions of
eternal toil arise,
Search for the high austere and lonely way
The
Spirit moves in through eternities.
Ah, in the soul what memories
arise!
And with what yearning inexpressible,
Rising from long
forgetfulness I turn
To Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still:
White for
Thy whiteness all desires burn.
Ah, with what longing once again I
turn!
THE PLACE OF REST
'The soul is its own witness and its own refuge'
Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
It lays its sadness nigh the breast:

Only the Mighty Mother knows
The wounds that quiver
unconfessed.
It seeks a deeper silence still;
It folds itself around with peace,

Where thoughts alike of good or ill
In quietness unfostered cease.
It feels in the unwounding vast
For comfort for its hopes and fears:

The Mighty Mother bows at last;
She listens to her children's tears.
Where the last anguish deepens--there
The fire of beauty smites
through pain:
A glory moves amid despair,
The Mother takes her
child again.
SACRIFICE
Those delicate wanderers,
The