The Wild Knight and Other Poems | Page 7

priest or tyrant triumph--
We
know how well--we know--
Bone of that bone can whiten,
Blood of
that blood can flow.
Deep grows the hate of kindred,
Its roots take hold on hell;
No
peace or praise can heal it,
But a stranger heals it well.
Seas shall be
red as sunsets,
And kings' bones float as foam,
And heaven be dark
with vultures,
The night our son comes home.
THE ANCIENT OF DAYS
A child sits in a sunny place,
Too happy for a smile,
And plays
through one long holiday
With balls to roll and pile;
A painted
wind-mill by his side
Runs like a merry tune,
But the sails are the
four great winds of heaven,
And the balls are the sun and moon.
A staring doll's-house shows to him
Green floors and starry rafter,

And many-coloured graven dolls
Live for his lonely laughter.
The
dolls have crowns and aureoles,
Helmets and horns and wings.
For
they are the saints and seraphim,
The prophets and the kings.
THE LAST MASQUERADE

A wan new garment of young green
Touched, as you turned your soft
brown hair
And in me surged the strangest prayer
Ever in lover's
heart hath been.
That I who saw your youth's bright page,
A rainbow change from
robe to robe,
Might see you on this earthly globe,
Crowned with the
silver crown of age.
Your dear hair powdered in strange guise,
Your dear face touched
with colours pale:
And gazing through the mask and veil
The mirth
of your immortal eyes.
THE EARTH'S SHAME
Name not his deed: in shuddering and in haste
We dragged him
darkly o'er the windy fell:
That night there was a gibbet in the waste,
And a new sin in hell.
Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,
By all men born be
one true tale forgot;
But three things, braver than all 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.