The Wild Knight and Other Poems | Page 7

earthly things,
Faced him and feared him not.
Above his head and sunken secret face?Nested the sparrow's young and dropped not dead.?From the red blood and slime of that lost place
Grew daisies white, not red.
And from high heaven looking upon him,?Slowly upon the face of God did come?A smile the cherubim and seraphim
Hid all their faces from.
VANITY
A wan sky greener than the lawn,?A wan lawn paler than the sky.?She gave a flower into my hand,?And all the hours of eve went by.
Who knows what round the corner waits?To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur?Shall leave me with a head to lift,?Worthy of him that spoke with her.
A wan sky greener than the lawn,?A wan lawn paler than the sky.?She gave a flower into my hand,?And all the days of life went by.
Live ill or well, this thing is mine,?From all I guard it, ill or well.?One tawdry, tattered, faded flower?To show the jealous kings in hell.
THE LAMP POST
Laugh your best, O blazoned forests,?Me ye shall not shift or shame?With your beauty: here among you?Man hath set his spear of flame.
Lamp to lamp we send the signal,?For our lord goes forth to war;?Since a voice, ere stars were builded,?Bade him colonise a star.
Laugh ye, cruel as the morning,?Deck your heads with fruit and flower,?Though our souls be sick with pity,?Yet our hands are hard with power.
We have read your evil stories,?We have heard the tiny yell?Through the voiceless conflagration?Of your green and shining hell.
And when men, with fires and shouting,?Break your old tyrannic pales;?And where ruled a single spider?Laugh and weep a million tales.
This shall be your best of boasting:?That some poet, poor of spine.?Full and sated with our wisdom,?Full and fiery with our wine,
Shall steal out and make a treaty?With the grasses and the showers,?Rail against the grey town-mother,?Fawn upon the scornful flowers;
Rest his head among the roses,?Where a quiet song-bird sounds,?And no sword made sharp for traitors,?Hack him into meat for hounds.
THE PESSIMIST
You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go-- I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.?You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span: Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man.
Deep in my life lies buried one love unhealed, unshriven,?One hunger still shall haunt me--yea, in the streets of heaven; This is the burden, babbler, this is the curse shall cling, This is the thing I bring you; this is the pleasant thing.
'Gainst you and all your sages, no joy of mine shall strive, This one dead self shall shatter the men you call alive.?My grief I send to smite you, no pleasure, no belief,?Lord of the battered grievance, what do you know of grief?
I only know the praises to heaven that one man gave,?That he came on earth for an instant, to stand beside a grave, The peace of a field of battle, where flowers are born of blood. I only know one evil that makes the whole world good.
Beneath this single sorrow the globe of moon and sphere?Turns to a single jewel, so bright and brittle and dear?That I dread lest God should drop it, to be dashed into stars below.
You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go.
A FAIRY TALE
All things grew upwards, foul and fair:?The great trees fought and beat the air?With monstrous wings that would have flown;?But the old earth clung to her own,?Holding them back from heavenly wars,?Though every flower sprang at the stars.
But he broke free: while all things ceased,?Some hour increasing, he increased.?The town beneath him seemed a map,?Above the church he cocked his cap,?Above the cross his feather flew?Above the birds and still he grew.
The trees turned grass; the clouds were riven;?His feet were mountains lost in heaven;?Through strange new skies he rose alone,?The earth fell from him like a stone,?And his own limbs beneath him far?Seemed tapering down to touch a star.
He reared his head, shaggy and grim,?Staring among the cherubim;?The seven celestial floors he rent,?One crystal dome still o'er him bent:?Above his head, more clear than hope,?All heaven was a microscope.
A PORTRAIT
Fair faces crowd on Christmas night?Like seven suns a-row,?But all beyond is the wolfish wind?And the crafty feet of the snow.
But through the rout one figure goes?With quick and quiet tread;?Her robe is plain, her form is frail--?Wait if she turn her head.
I say no word of line or hue,?But if that face you see,?Your soul shall know the smile of faith's?Awful frivolity.
Know that in this grotesque old masque?Too loud we cannot sing,?Or dance too wild, or speak too wide?To praise a hidden thing.
That though the jest be old as night,?Still shaketh sun and sphere?An everlasting laughter?Too loud for us to hear.
FEMINA CONTRA MUNDUM
The sun was black with judgment, and the moon
Blood: but between?I saw a