Underwoods | Page 8

well,
Never a note, never a trill,
Never a beat of
the chiming bell.
There I hung and looked, and there
In my gray
face, faces fair
Shone from under shining hair.
Well I saw the
poising head,
But the lips moved and nothing said;
And when lights
were in the hall,
Silent moved the dancers all.
So awhile I glowed, and then
Fell on dusty days and men;
Long I
slumbered packed in straw,
Long I none but dealers saw;
Till before
my silent eye
One that sees came passing by.
Now with an outlandish grace,
To the sparkling fire I face
In the
blue room at Skerryvore;
Where I wait until the door
Open, and the
Prince of Men,
Henry James, shall come again.
XIX - KATHARINE
We see you as we see a face
That trembles in a forest place
Upon
the mirror of a pool
Forever quiet, clear and cool;
And in the
wayward glass, appears
To hover between smiles and tears,
Elfin
and human, airy and true,

And backed by the reflected blue.
XX- TO F. J. S.
I read, dear friend, in your dear face
Your life's tale told with perfect

grace;
The river of your life, I trace
Up the sun-chequered, devious
bed
To the far-distant fountain-head.
Not one quick beat of your warm heart,
Nor thought that came to you
apart,
Pleasure nor pity, love nor pain
Nor sorrow, has gone by in
vain;
But as some lone, wood-wandering child
Brings home with him at
evening mild
The thorns and flowers of all the wild,
From your
whole life, O fair and true
Your flowers and thorns you bring with
you!
XXI - REQUIEM
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad
did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
HERE HE LIES WHERE HE
LONGED TO BE;
HOME IS THE SAILOR, HOME FROM
SEA,
AND THE HUNTER HOME FROM THE HILL.
XXII - THE CELESTIAL SURGEON
If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I
have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;

If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning
skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen
heart in vain:-
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my
spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before
that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart
run them in!
XXIII - OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
Out of the sun, out of the blast,
Out of the world, alone I passed

Across the moor and through the wood
To where the monastery stood.


There neither lute nor breathing fife,
Nor rumour of the world of
life,
Nor confidences low and dear,
Shall strike the meditative ear.

Aloof, unhelpful, and unkind,
The prisoners of the iron mind,

Where nothing speaks except the hell
The unfraternal brothers dwell.
Poor passionate men, still clothed afresh
With agonising folds of
flesh;
Whom the clear eyes solicit still
To some bold output of the
will,
While fairy Fancy far before
And musing
Memory-Hold-the-door
Now to heroic death invite
And now
uncurtain fresh delight:
O, little boots it thus to dwell
On the remote
unneighboured hill!
O to be up and doing, O
Unfearing and unshamed to go
In all the
uproar and the press
About my human business!
My undissuaded
heart I hear
Whisper courage in my ear.
With voiceless calls, the
ancient earth
Summons me to a daily birth.
Thou, O my love, ye, O my friends -
The gist of life, the end of ends -

To laugh, to love, to live, to die,
Ye call me by the ear and eye!
Forth from the casemate, on the plain
Where honour has the world to
gain,
Pour forth and bravely do your part,
O knights of the
unshielded heart!
Forth and forever forward! - out
From prudent
turret and redoubt,
And in the mellay charge amain,
To fall but yet
to rise again!
Captive? ah, still, to honour bright,
A captive soldier
of the right!
Or free and fighting, good with ill?
Unconquering but
unconquered still!
And ye, O brethren, what if God,
When from Heav'n's top he spies
abroad,
And sees on this tormented stage

The noble war of mankind
rage:
What if his vivifying eye,
O monks, should pass your corner
by?
For still the Lord is Lord of might;
In deeds, in deeds, he takes
delight;
The plough, the spear, the laden barks,
The field, the
founded city, marks;
He marks the smiler of the streets,
The singer

upon garden seats;
He sees the climber in the rocks:
To him, the
shepherd folds his flocks.
For those he loves that underprop
With
daily virtues Heaven's top,
And bear the falling sky with ease,

Unfrowning caryatides.
Those he approves that ply the trade,
That
rock the child, that wed the maid,
That with weak virtues, weaker
hands,
Sow gladness on the peopled lands,
And still with laughter,
song and shout,
Spin the great wheel of earth about.
But ye? - O ye who linger still
Here in your fortress on the hill,

With placid face, with tranquil breath,
The unsought volunteers of
death,
Our cheerful General on high
With careless looks may pass
you by.
XXIV
Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert,
Where thou with grass,
and rivers, and the