The Poems of William Watson | Page 8

whence it rose, And musing to what Deep it flows.
For still the ancient riddles mar Our joy in man, in leaf, in star. The Whence and Whither give no rest, The Wherefore is a hopeless quest; And the dull wight who never thinks,-- Who, chancing on the sleeping Sphinx, Passes unchallenged,--fares the best!
But ill it suits this random verse The high enigmas to rehearse, And touch with desultory tongue Secrets no man from Night hath wrung. We ponder, question, doubt--and pray The Deep to answer Yea or Nay; And what does the engirdling wave, The undivulging, yield us, save Aspersion of bewildering spray? We do but dally on the beach, Writing our little thoughts full large, While Ocean with imperious speech Derides us trifling by the marge. Nay, we are children, who all day Beside the unknown waters play, And dig with small toy-spade the sand, Thinking our trenches wondrous deep, Till twilight falls, and hand-in-hand Nurse takes us home, well tired, to sleep; Sleep, and forget our toys, and be Lulled by the great unsleeping sea.
Enough!--to Cornwall you go down, And I tag rhymes in London town.

TO AUSTIN DOBSON
Yes! urban is your Muse, and owns An empire based on London stones; Yet flow'rs, as mountain violets sweet, Spring from the pavement 'neath her feet.
Of wilder birth this Muse of mine, Hill-cradled, and baptized with brine; And 'tis for her a sweet despair To watch that courtly step and air!
Yet surely she, without reproof, Greeting may send from realms aloof, And even claim a tie in blood, And dare to deem it sisterhood.
For well we know, those Maidens be All daughters of Mnemosyne; And 'neath the unifying sun, Many the songs--but Song is one.

TO EDWARD CLODD
Friend, in whose friendship I am twice well-starred, A debt not time may cancel is your due; For was it not your praise that earliest drew, On me obscure, that chivalrous regard, Ev'n his, who, knowing fame's first steep how hard, With generous lips no faltering clarion blew, Bidding men hearken to a lyre by few Heeded, nor grudge the bay to one more bard? Bitter the task, year by inglorious year, Of suitor at the world's reluctant ear. One cannot sing for ever, like a bird, For sole delight of singing! Him his mate Suffices, listening with a heart elate; Nor more his joy, if all the rapt heav'n heard.

TO EDWARD DOWDEN
ON RECEIVING FROM HIM A COPY OF "THE LIFE OF SHELLEY"
First, ere I slake my hunger, let me thank The giver of the feast. For feast it is, Though of ethereal, translunary fare-- His story who pre-eminently of men Seemed nourished upon starbeams and the stuff Of rainbows, and the tempest, and the foam; Who hardly brooked on his impatient soul The fleshly trammels; whom at last the sea Gave to the fire, from whose wild arms the winds Took him, and shook him broadcast to the world. In my young days of fervid poesy He drew me to him with his strange far light,-- He held me in a world all clouds and gleams, And vasty phantoms, where ev'n Man himself Moved like a phantom 'mid the clouds and gleams. Anon the Earth recalled me, and a voice Murmuring of dethroned divinities And dead times deathless upon sculptured urn-- And Philomela's long-descended pain Flooding the night--and maidens of romance To whom asleep St. Agnes' love-dreams come-- Awhile constrained me to a sweet duresse And thraldom, lapping me in high content, Soft as the bondage of white amorous arms. And then a third voice, long unheeded--held Claustral and cold, and dissonant and tame-- Found me at last with ears to hear. It sang Of lowly sorrows and familiar joys, Of simple manhood, artless womanhood, And childhood fragrant as the limpid morn; And from the homely matter nigh at hand Ascending and dilating, it disclosed Spaces and avenues, calm heights and breadths Of vision, whence I saw each blade of grass With roots that groped about eternity, And in each drop of dew upon each blade The mirror of the inseparable All. The first voice, then the second, in their turns Had sung me captive. This voice sang me free. Therefore, above all vocal sons of men, Since him whose sightless eyes saw hell and heaven, To Wordsworth be my homage, thanks, and love. Yet dear is Keats, a lucid presence, great With somewhat of a glorious soullessness. And dear, and great with an excess of soul, Shelley, the hectic flamelike rose of verse, All colour, and all odour, and all bloom, Steeped in the noonlight, glutted with the sun, But somewhat lacking root in homely earth, Lacking such human moisture as bedews His not less starward stem of song, who, rapt Not less in glowing vision, yet retained His clasp of the prehensible,