The Wild Knight and Other Poems | Page 4

my good? the little real hoard,
The secret tears, the sudden
chivalries;
The tragic love, the futile triumph--where?
Thief, dog,
and son of devils--where are these?
I will lift up my head: in leprous loves
Lost, and the soul's
dishonourable scars--
By God I was a better man than This
That
stands and slanders me to all the stars.
'Come down!' And with an awful cry, the corse
Sprang on the sacred

tomb of many tales,
And stone and bone, locked in a loathsome strife,

Swayed to the singing of the nightingales.
Then one was thrown: and where the statue stood
Under the canopy,
above the lawn,
The corse stood; grey and lean, with lifted hands

Raised in tremendous welcome to the dawn.
'Now let all nations climb and crawl and pray;
Though I be basest of
my old red clan,
They shall not scale, with cries or sacrifice,
The
stature of the spirit of a man.'
THE MARINER
The violet scent is sacred
Like dreams of angels bright;
The
hawthorn smells of passion
Told in a moonless night.
But the smell is in my nostrils,
Through blossoms red or gold,
Of
my own green flower unfading,
A bitter smell and bold.
The lily smells of pardon,
The rose of mirth; but mine
Smells
shrewd of death and honour,
And the doom of Adam's line.
The heavy scent of wine-shops
Floats as I pass them by,
But never
a cup I quaff from,
And never a house have I.
Till dropped down forty fathoms,
I lie eternally;
And drink from
God's own goblet
The green wine of the sea.
THE TRIUMPH OF MAN
I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes,
I hunt for dusty gain
and dreary praise,
And slowly pass the dismal grinning days,

Monkeying each other like a line of apes.
What care? There was one hour amid all these
When I had stripped
off like a tawdry glove
My starriest hopes and wants, for very love


Of time and desolate eternities.
Yea, for one great hour's triumph, not in me
Nor any hope of mine
did I rejoice,
But in a meadow game of girls and boys
Some sunset
in the centuries to be.
CYCLOPEAN
A mountainous and mystic brute
No rein can curb, no arrow shoot,

Upon whose domed deformed back
I sweep the planets scorching
track.
Old is the elf, and wise, men say,
His hair grows green as ours grows
grey;
He mocks the stars with myriad hands.
High as that swinging
forest stands.
But though in pigmy wanderings dull
I scour the deserts of his skull,

I never find the face, eyes, teeth.
Lowering or laughing underneath.
I met my foe in an empty dell,
His face in the sun was naked hell.
I
thought, 'One silent, bloody blow.
No priest would curse, no crowd
would know.'
Then cowered: a daisy, half concealed,
Watched for the fame of that
poor field;
And in that flower and suddenly
Earth opened its one
eye on me.
JOSEPH
If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams
Of bliss and blasphemy came
true,
If skies were green and snow were gold,
And you loved me as
I love you;
O long light hands and curled brown hair,
And eyes where sits a
naked soul;
Dare I even then draw near and burn
My fingers in the
aureole?

Yes, in the one wise foolish hour
God gives this strange strength to a
man.
He can demand, though not deserve,
Where ask he cannot,
seize he can.
But once the blood's wild wedding o'er,
Were not dread his, half dark
desire,
To see the Christ-child in the cot,
The Virgin Mary by the
fire?
MODERN ELFLAND
I Cut a staff in a churchyard copse,
I clad myself in ragged things,
I
set a feather in my cap
That fell out of an angel's wings.
I filled my wallet with white stones,
I took three foxgloves in my
hand,
I slung my shoes across my back,
And so I went to fairyland.
But Lo, within that ancient place
Science had reared her iron crown,

And the great cloud of steam went up
That telleth where she takes
a town.
But cowled with smoke and starred with lamps
That strange land's
light was still its own;
The word that witched the woods and hills

Spoke in the iron and the stone.
Not Nature's hand had ever curved
That mute unearthly porter's spine.

Like sleeping dragon's sudden eyes
The signals leered along the
line.
The chimneys thronging crooked or straight
Were fingers signalling
the sky;
The dog that strayed across the street
Seemed four-legged
by monstrosity.
'In vain,' I cried, 'though you too touch
The new time's desecrating
hand,
Through all the noises of a town
I hear the heart of fairyland.'
I read the name above a door,
Then through my spirit pealed and

passed:
'This is the town of thine own home,
And thou hast looked
on it at last.'
ETERNITIES
I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: 'Swear
not by thy head,
Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,

Writes that wild number in his own strange book.
I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave
so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will
name the leaves upon the