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AUGURIES 
 
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AUGUEIES 
 
 BY 
 
 LAURENCE BINYON 
 
 LONDON 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 MCMXIII 
 
TO 
 
 ROBERT BRIDGES 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A PRELUDE AT EVENING 1 
 
 MALHAM COVE 4 
 
 ELEGY 26 
 
 THE MIRROR 29 
 
 TO TIME 4,4 
 
 THE TIGER-LILY 46 
 
 THE BOWL OF WATER 53 
 
 FERRY HINKSEY 55 
 
 IN THE FOREST 56 
 
 THE FOREST PINE 58 
 
 FIDE ET LITERIS 62 
 
 PAST AND FUTURE 63 
 
 THUNDER ON THE DOWNS 64 
 
 THE TRAM 73 
 
 TOWERS OF ITALY 83 
 
 VIGIL 85 
 
 THE PORCH OF STARS 87 
 
 THE PROMISE 88 
 
 A MOTHER'S SONG 89 
 
 ONE YEAR OLD 91 
 
 BECAUSE THOU ART NEAREST 94 
 
 SEVEN YEARS 95 
 
 SORROW^ 96 
 
 E. H. P.: IN MEMORY 97 
 
A PRELUDE AT EVENING 
 
 My spirit was like the lonely air 
 
 Before night. 
 Like hovering cloud that 's melted there 
 
 In the late light, 
 When slow the vast earth-shadows reach 
 
 To the last flush, 
 And the wandering Silences have each 
 
 Their own hush. 
 
 Did the green grass about me glimmer, 
 
 Or trees tower? 
 Not softer to my sense, nor dimmer. 
 
 The obscure power 
 Of all the world's wide trouble, fought 
 
 In the heart's recess : 
 My heart was solitude, my thought 
 
 Emptiness. 
 
 1 A 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 But through my spirit that seemed, unfilled, 
 
 Alone to float, 
 A sudden dewy sweetness thrilled ; 
 
 A low note ! 
 And then a loud note, rippling full 
 
 To a still pause : 
 The liquid silence was a pool 
 
 That a breeze flaws. 
 
 It throbbed again, how lonely clear ! 
 
 A song that seemed 
 Sprung beyond memory or fear, 
 
 A voice dreamed 
 In a land that no man ever found ; 
 
 And who knows 
 What shook those lingering drops of sound 
 
 At the rich close ? 
 
 Ah, where were you, passion and grief 
 Of the world's wrong ? 
 
 What had you to do with a trembling leaf 
 And a bird's song. 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 And spaces calm with coming of night, 
 And the fresh gloom 
 
 Of shadowy trees, and smelt delight 
 Of hidden bloom ? 
 
 Yet O, in me that song had part 
 
 Because of you ! 
 It drank of the very blood of the heart 
 
 It quivered through 
 Because of the tears of joy, and the cost 
 
 Of a joy's breath, 
 Measureless thoughts of a dearness lost, 
 
 Hope, and death. 
 
 Strangeness of longing, beauty, pain ! 
 
 I was aware 
 Of all your secret, soft as rain. 
 
 In the dim air. 
 For Life it was that sang aloud 
 
 To the lone dew. 
 Brave in the night and sweet in the cloud ; 
 
 My heart knew. 
 
MALHAM COVE 
 
 I 
 
 There is threat in the wind, and a murmur 
 
 of water that swells 
 Swift in the hollow : about me 
 
 a shadow is thrown ; 
 For above is no valley sequestered 
 
 in shy, green dells, 
 But abrupt, sky-closing, a wall 
 
 and a vastness of stone. 
 Did the rock split asunder with ages ? 
 
 or suddenly smote 
 The hand of a God on the mountain ? 
 
 for under the face 
 Of the imminent height, at the humid 
 
 and cold rock-base, 
 From out of the dungeoned recesses, 
 
 the cavernous throat, 
 4> 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Disimprisoned there bursts, not a rill, 
 not a trickle of spray, 
 
 But broad in its gushing and full 
 and sweeping apace 
 
 A river arisen that dances 
 in laughter away. 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 II 
 
 Builded aloof ; unscaleable ; 
 
 towering stark 
 To the fugitive cloud and the blue, 
 
 O Soul of the Rock ! 
 Silent, remote as the moon, 
 
 that will'st not to hark 
 To the cry of the lamb on the precipice 
 
 lost from the flock ; 
 If thou suffer the pine in thy cranny 
 
 that dizzily clings 
 Small-seen as a fern, or a thicket 
 
 of obstinate thorn, 
 'Tis disdain that neglects them, rather 
 
 a scorning of scorn, 
 Unheedful of them as of those 
 
 irresistible springs 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Gushing out from beneath thee, unheard 
 
 as the cry of the bird 
 That skims from the shadow and hovers 
 
 a flashing of wings 
 Mid the flush and the greening of April.- 
 
 Thou standest unstirred, 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 III 
 
 A desert uplifted, a desert 
 
 where bones rot and bleach, 
 A barrenness knowing not change 
 
 nor date nor event, 
 A strength without speech, without motion, 
 
 yet stronger than speech ; 
 A bulk without feature, a winter 
 
 of force long spent ; 
 And neither is hope, nor terror, 
 
 nor weakness there. 
 But a pressure and weight of oblivion 
 
 where no man is known, 
 Nor feature from feature distinguished 
 
 but all overthrown ; 
 Like the rampart of Time that confronts us 
 
 enormous and bare, 
 
 8 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Immuring the dream and the vision 
 whereby we have breath ; 
 
 Like Night and the end of the light 
 to them that despair : 
 
 I stand in thy shadow and fear thee, 
 thou stature of Death ! 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 IV 
 
 Come away, come away ! There is light 
 
 in the water that glides. 
 Come away with the water that hastes 
 
 from the heart of the hills, 
 A sinuous ripple that sings 
 
 and that nowhere abides. 
 But broken, a murmuring sparkle, 
 
 on ledges and sills 
 Of the rock, as it swerves, carries in it 
 
 a wavering fire. 
 Like a thought, like a joy, that no barrier 
 
 stays from its flight. 
 Or a dance of young children that carol 
 
 their heart of delight ; 
 For it calls to the bud to burst open, 
 
 the blade to thrust higher ; 
 
 10 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 To my heart, to ray heart, it is calling — 
 
 " O follow ! for here 
 Is thine own heart, quick and enamoured 
 
 of love and of light ; 
 O follow my swiftness and stay not 
 
 in shadows of fear ! " 
 
 II 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 On beds in the valley, on sunny 
 
 half-islanded banks, 
 Where roots are athirst and refreshed 
 
 and saplings grow bold 
 Bowing their youth to the breezes 
 
 in quivering ranks. 
 Primroses, a cluster of softness 
 
 and fragrance, unfold ; 
 And the fairy anemone, shaking 
 
 her blossoms agleam — 
 They are kisses of light as they tremble 
 
 to touch and to part — 
 Is flushed, ah ! how faint, as with fire 
 
 from the innermost heart 
 Of a world in whose veins is a laughter 
 
 as clear as the stream ; 
 
 12 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 And the music upholds me, enchants me, 
 and borne like a wave, 
 
 I am melted, I flow, I am nought 
 but a hope and a dream, 
 
 And in me is the youth of the flowers, 
 and grief in her grave. 
 
 13 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 VI 
 
 Sudden a gust flings a shadow ! 
 
 and shivering, the black 
 Driven leaves at the roots of the oak-tree 
 
 are whirled up and lost 
 Like the wild thoughts of fear into darkness, 
 
 and strong boughs crack. 
 And a gloom rushes down with a wailing, 
 
 and out of it tossed 
 Pale snow is outshaken, and hail 
 
 drops icily keen 
 On young leaf and dead ; and awakened 
 
 in tree-tops aloud 
 Is the roar of the storm that has gathered 
 
 the hills in a shroud 
 Until naught of the towering rock 
 
 but in glimmers is seen. 
 
 14 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 A vision unfeatured, a phantom 
 
 of terrible birth : — 
 Is it thou that appearest, a presence 
 
 divined in the cloud, 
 Thy ribs and thy knees and thy breasts, 
 
 O Titaness Earth ? 
 
 15 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 VII 
 
 Is it thine, the great voice that confuses 
 
 the winds and the floods 
 In a meaningless cry as of madmen, 
 
 a blindness of wrath, 
 Smiting the bosses of oak 
 
 and the virginal buds. 
 Negligent where thou hast beaten 
 
 thy desolate swath ? 
 O thou, who hast armed as for battle 
 
 thy creatures wild 
 With fierceness of claw and of fang, 
 
 of hoof and of horn. 
 From thee, even thee, from thy heart-beat 
 
 was man, too, born 
 With flesh like a flower defenceless ? 
 
 is he thy child ? 
 
 16 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 In whose eyes are wonder and trouble, 
 who strikes, yet the wrong 
 
 He has done he turns from again 
 and with sorrow is torn : 
 
 How shall his heart be as thine 
 or in thy way strong ? 
 
 17 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 VIII 
 
 For who that is born of a woman 
 
 has known not the hour 
 When the spirit within him is daunted 
 
 and this world comes 
 As an army against him, a terror 
 
 of alien power. 
 And fate, too vast to be borne, 
 
 his courage benumbs ? 
 Lost he seems as a child 
 
 upon mountains alone. 
 Who has longed not then with longing 
 
 for a strength past pain 
 To endure the rending of sorrow 
 
 that makes hope vain. 
 To be kneaded in iron and stubborned 
 
 in armour of stone ? 
 
 1« 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 That hour when the heavens are shaken 
 
 within the mind, 
 And the world is an enemy armed 
 
 have I not known ? 
 For the strength of the stony mountain 
 
 have I not pined ? 
 
 19 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 IX 
 
 But lo ! on a sudden, with sighing 
 
 the storm ends now 
 In a radiant relenting : golden 
 
 the light reappears 
 With a glory of drops that are dancing 
 
 on leaf and on bough ; 
 And a music, a wandering music 
 
 returns to my ears. 
 From the primrose is breathing a freshness, 
 
 and wild, shy smells 
 From the moss, where the snowflake is melted 
 
 to dazzling dew. 
 And the voice of the birds on the banks 
 
 is uplifted anew 
 To the carolling voice of the river 
 
 that onward swells. 
 
 20 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Onward away, where the buds 
 
 gleam white on the tree ! 
 
 The rain and the gloom are forgotten 
 in heaven's young blue ; 
 
 And my heart flows otit with the river, 
 the river with me. 
 
 21 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 In a trance, in a trance I listen ; 
 
 and into my soul, 
 As it draws far back to a stillness 
 
 darkly stored 
 With infinite sound, gather 
 
 and gradual roll 
 The voices of all the torrents 
 
 on earth outpoured. 
 " We tarry not, rest not, sleep not," 
 
 aloud they cry, 
 " We are swift as the hours that crumble 
 
 thy strength into dust ; 
 We build thee no home, nor a fortress 
 
 wherein to trust ; 
 But in us is the sound of dominion 
 
 falling from high, 
 
 22 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 And the kings of the world dethroned 
 and towers laid bare. 
 
 We move, we are ever beyond ; 
 we change, we die ; 
 
 We laugh, we live ; to follow 
 wilt thou too dare ? " 
 
 23 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 XI 
 
 How shall I not go with you, 
 
 waters swift ? 
 Too long in yesterday's self 
 
 1 tarry, and keep 
 
 The dust of the world about me. 
 
 Uplift, uplift. 
 Lose me, a wave in the waves 
 
 that laugh and leap ! 
 Lo, into uttermost time 
 
 my thoughts I send : 
 And because in my heart is a flowing 
 
 no hour can bind. 
 Because through the wrongs of the world 
 
 looking forth and behind, 
 I find for my thought not a close, 
 
 for my soul not an end. 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 With you will I follow, nor crave 
 the strength of the strong 
 
 Nor a fortress of time to enshield me 
 from storms that rend. 
 
 This is life, this is home, to be poured 
 as a stream, as a song. 
 
 25 
 
ELEGY 
 
 The little waves fall in the wintry light 
 
 On idle sands, along the bitter shore. 
 
 The piling clouds are all a pale suspended flight ; 
 
 They tarry and are moved no more. 
 
 Thin rushes tremble about the naked dune ; 
 A hovering sail sinks down the utmost sea ; 
 With wreckage and old foam the unending sands are 
 
 strewn ; 
 And the waves heap their dumbness over me. 
 
 This is the Earth that lasts beyond our dreams 
 Of time, and rushing onward without rest, 
 Deludes us with her trancing silences, yet teems 
 Fiercely, and burns within her breast, 
 
 Insatiate of youth, this old, old Earth, 
 Who uses our spent ashes for her need, 
 
 26 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Shaping the delicate marvel of her youngest birth, 
 And still she kindles a new seed. 
 
 Intent on the unborn creature of her thought 
 
 And busy in the waste : O even here, 
 
 Though masked as in a calm of dumb frustration, 
 
 naught 
 Stays her, no pang nor any fear, 
 
 But subtly, with a touch invisible, 
 She is changing and compelling ; and me too. 
 Me too, upon the secret stream of that deep will 
 She moves to a destiny ever new. 
 
 And yet this hour my spirit hides its face. 
 And, backward turned, sighs out an idle pain 
 For the remembered paths these feet may not retrace 
 And the hours that cannot come again. 
 
 O hours of heavenly madness in delight 
 That felt the swiftness and the throb of wings, 
 That stole the burning soul of naked summer night 
 And the moons of the perfumed springs ! 
 
 27 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Not now to you my longing stretches hands, 
 But to lost hours, that had no fruit, no seed. 
 Like fading of low light beyond forgotten lands, 
 They have passed and are dead indeed. 
 
 And once, for once, unrecking Earth, you seem 
 With me to linger and to acquiesce. 
 To share the desolation of my doubt and dream, 
 And to ponder upon barrenness. 
 
 The wind lulls on the waste, and has no will. 
 The foiled tides hush and falter at their bound. 
 A little sand is blown, then all again is still ; 
 And the clouds hang silence around. 
 
 With such an absence felt in the lone skies, 
 Suppression of such tears, profoundly sprung 
 In long-remembering looks of unconversing eyes 
 As when the old bury the young. 
 
 28 
 
THE MIRROR 
 
 Where is all the beauty that hath been ? 
 
 Where the bloom ? 
 
 Dust on boundless wind ? Grass dropt into fire ? 
 
 Shall Earth boast at last of all her teeming womb, 
 
 All that suffered, all that triumphed, to inspire 
 
 Life in perfect mould and speech, the proud mind's 
 
 lamp serene — 
 Nothing ? Space be starry in tremendous choir — 
 For whom ? 
 
 In this deserted chamber, as the evening falls, 
 
 Silent curtains move no fold ; 
 
 Long has ebbed the floor's pale gold ; 
 
 Shadows deepen down the silent walls. 
 
 The air is mute as dreams beneath a sleeper's face. 
 
 Distant, undivined ; 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 But every hovering shadow seems to hold 
 
 Want untold. 
 
 The look of things forsaken, each in its own place, 
 
 Memories without home in any mind. 
 
 Idle, rich neglect and perfume old — 
 
 Over these the glimmer of the twilight fades ; 
 
 Infinite human solitude invades 
 
 Forms relinquished, hues resigned. 
 
 O little mirror, round and clear. 
 In solemn-coloured shadow lying 
 Cold as the moon, pale as a tear. 
 With spiritual silver beam replying 
 Indifferently to all things as to one ; 
 Beauty's relic and oblivion. 
 But void, void, void ! Desolate as a cave 
 Abandoned even of the breaking wave, 
 A home of youth and mirth, when all its guests are gone ! 
 As I touch thee in the silence here, 
 Where thou liest alone, apart. 
 Through the silence of my heart 
 Thou flashest elfin flames of fear. 
 
 30 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Like a thought of lost delight, 
 
 Like love-sweetness, like despair. 
 
 Come faint spices of the night 
 
 Floating on the darkened air. 
 
 The air is tender with the sense of dew, 
 
 Is tranced, is dim, is heavy, as if there hung 
 
 Within the tinges of its shadowy hue 
 
 Ghosts of lost flowers, with all their petals young. 
 
 And the young beauty they made incense to. 
 
 O forlorn mirror, is there nothing thine ? 
 
 The cup is emptied of its fragrant wine, 
 
 The dress is vacant of the breathing form, 
 
 And thou that gleam'st 
 
 All absence of what once moved gracious, white and 
 
 warm 
 In thy clear wells, or luminously mused, 
 O little mirror long disused. 
 Laid in this empty bower's recess. 
 Thou thyself seem'st 
 The soul and mystery of emptiness. 
 
 31 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Yet if I should raise thee now, 
 
 As once and oft, thou knowest how, 
 
 Hand and slim wrist, smooth as a flower-stem, raised 
 
 Thy silent brilliance, and with intent brow 
 
 Eyes within thee gazed 
 
 Seeking thy oracle, 
 
 Shall not from those pellucid secrecies appear 
 
 Not I, nor any shape of this dim room. 
 
 But all that in thy cave of lambent gloom 
 
 Hath dwelt and still may dwell. 
 
 Ambushed like visions bound in sleeping memory's cell ; 
 
 All that thy brightness buries as the sea 
 
 Tossed bones and crusted gold : had I the key, 
 
 Mightst thou not ope thy depths, mightst thou not 
 
 yield, 
 Wonder of wonders ! What since time began 
 Was never yet revealed. 
 The unmapped, unmeasured, secret heart of man ? 
 
 Half-shut eyes voluptuously 
 
 Lightening, as the bosom swells and glows ; 
 
 Smile to smile flowering from an ardent thought ; 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 what moments didst thou deify 
 With the promise of life crushed to wine 
 Redder than the cheek's triumphant rose ! 
 — But from deeper places hast thou brought 
 Nothing ? Are not other answers thine ? 
 
 Hast thou not heard, hast thou not seen, 
 Hast thou not shown, hast thou not found 
 Shames unwhispered, terrors bound. 
 Earthquake pangs of aghast surmise. 
 When with itself the heart has been 
 Face to face in an hour profound ? 
 Out of thee what ghosts shall rise, 
 Shapes and gestures, and accusing eyes ! 
 World-flattered faces in midnights of pain ; 
 Faces defaced by tiger-lusts insane ; 
 Faces appalled before a self unguessed ; 
 Ashaming dawns on faces fallen and dispossessed ! 
 O what glimpses hast thou flashed in dread, 
 With what hauntings wast thou visited. 
 Apparitions of a soul made bare 
 Shuddering at the thing it looked on there ! 
 
 33 c 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 But thou art stainless, though the heart has bled, 
 Thou art silent as the air 
 
 Or the wave that closes smooth above the drowner's 
 head. 
 
 No man hath seen his soul 
 Save for a glimpse in the night 
 Brief as an ember of coal 
 Blown for an instant bright. 
 To see his own soul as it is, 
 Eternity must enter him 
 With the torches of Seraphim 
 That have shone to the last abyss. 
 Mirror, couldst thou show the spirit this. 
 Then within this narrow room 
 Were the Judgment and the Doom. 
 For by so much as its own self it knew 
 Searched by that burning vision through and through 
 To the innermost of where it crouched and hid 
 Amid the husks of the mean deeds it did. 
 Amid the shadow of all it shunned, the quest 
 It turned from, and in palterings acquiesced, 
 
 34 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 To the uttermost of what its eager passion 
 
 Caught of the glory springing to re-fashion 
 
 Hope and the world, and great with pity saw 
 
 Life darkly wrestling with the angel, Law — 
 
 By such a measure, molten in that fire. 
 
 Should the soul mete itself on God's desire, 
 
 Suffer at last all wisdom, and endure 
 
 The beam and vision of a thought all-pure. 
 
 O were not this to taste Heaven's dawn, or dwell, 
 
 Because of knowledge, in the pains of Hell ? 
 
 35 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 II 
 
 Where is all the wailing, all the want 
 
 That sorrow tore 
 
 From Love's bleeding breast ? Extinguished quite ? 
 
 Shall the wide-winged glory of hope extravagant, 
 
 Shall the laughter, shall the song that sprang to 
 
 soar 
 Fall, and no ear hearken, and their failing flight 
 Echoless waste walls of adamant 
 Ignore ? 
 
 Draw wide the curtain ! Fabulous, remote 
 
 Night is come. 
 
 Over Earth's lost bosom fragrant breathings float 
 
 Into glimmering heights of gloom. 
 
 But upon the solitary verge extreme 
 
 Steals a beam. 
 
 Hushed and sudden, ere the eye could note, 
 
 Lo, the moon is there ! 
 
 36 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Innocence of splendour, gazing bare, 
 
 Drenches leaves in quiet, thought in dream. 
 
 Is it Earth's pale mirror lifted lone 
 
 For an answer to her million sighs ? 
 
 Can that far Tranquillity atone 
 
 In the gaze of those unnumbered eyes 
 
 For the pang and for the moan, 
 
 For the heart's dim burial and long dirge. 
 
 Luring, as she lures the mutinous sea-surge. 
 
 To her will of peace this human tide ? 
 
 From a charmed shadow on the shorn hill-side 
 Hand-in-hand lovers through the trees emerge. 
 And pause ; their very souls are glorified, 
 Their feet tread airy on immaterial ground, 
 With marvelling gaze they feel 
 That well of spiritual light overflow 
 The listening hush, and steal 
 Fear and trouble, as though 
 The world were one vast music of ethereal sound 
 And they a stillness in the midst of it. 
 Peace, peace and pity ! pardon, pity, peace, 
 Passing all mortal wit ! 
 
 S7 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 O truth long-sought and magically found, 
 
 O wonder and release ! 
 
 O secret of the world long-hidden in day's dust ! 
 
 They bathe their hearts in that sweet dew, their hands 
 
 Thrill clasping in a touch that understands 
 
 Nothing magnificent but a divine surrender 
 
 Absolving and august. 
 
 To distances immersed and tender 
 
 Unfolds this vale of struggle hard and pent, 
 
 Region of unwon ravishment 
 
 In unadventured lands, 
 
 A place of leaves and lonely light and leafy scent 
 
 Storied like that old forest of the perilous Fleece. 
 
 Sorceress of million nights ! 
 Hast thou charmed indeed the brew, 
 When with stealth of perverse rites — 
 Mouths that mutter, hands that strew, — 
 Love tormented and malign. 
 Flushed with terror like a maddening wine 
 Sought another's rue ? 
 
 Hecate of the cross-roads, hast thou hearkened 
 
 38 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 To the sailing witch's mew 
 And the felon raven's croak 
 When the shuddering winds were darkened 
 And the leaves rushed from the withered oak ? 
 Ah, not these foul toys would I invoke ! 
 for some supreme enchanting spell, 
 Voice of a God crying aloud, 
 Felt and feared on Earth's heart-strings, 
 To conjm-e and to compel 
 Like a spectre from the shroud 
 Or like incense-dust that springs 
 Into fire and fragrant cloud. 
 Out of thy blind caves and cold recesses 
 Out of that blank mirror's desert beam 
 All the unnumbered longings and wild prayers. 
 Infinite heart-broken tendernesses. 
 Indignations and despairs 
 
 That from man's long wound of passion stream. 
 Sucked like vapour, like a mist of tears 
 Into that imagined peace, that ecstasy ! 
 O surely, surely, thou hast wrought thy part 
 In every secret and tempestuous heart, 
 
 39 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Thou that hast gleamed on thousand battle-crimsoned 
 
 spears, 
 Thou that wast radiant on Gethsemane ! 
 
 She has seen not, she has heard not. 
 
 Hearts have leapt for her, but she has stirred not. 
 
 Pity she has made, but none has had. 
 
 Though her magic mingles with Earth's want 
 
 And the trouble of Earth's tender sons, 
 
 Thimder of the builded Babylons, 
 
 Music of the dreaming poet's chant, 
 
 Venture of the steering argosies. 
 
 With a light as of divine fulfilment clad 
 
 Breathing in for ever syllables of peace. 
 
 Peace, is it peace ? Yet Earth, dark Earth, 
 Mother, O Mother, thou that nourishest 
 In the blind patience of thy teeming breast 
 Hope without end ; who drivest life to birth. 
 Yet numberest not our dear and sacred dead. 
 Unheeding of our anguish and lost cries 
 So thou mayst build beyond us, in our stead, 
 A race enriched with all for which we bled, 
 
 40 
 
AUGURIES 
 Of haughtier stature and of kinglier eyes ; 
 Thou of whose vast desire strong realms of old, 
 The dynasty of empires, were but waves 
 That towered and crashed into their splendid graves. 
 For thine unresting hunger to remould 
 Yet mightier, O insatiable ! Doth fear 
 Not shake thee, Mother, seest thou not ev'n here 
 In that cold mirror's answer what shall steep 
 Thee also in oblivion ? Thou shalt keep 
 Of all the fruit of thy most fiery spring, 
 Stored riches of thy sleepless trafficking, 
 And proud perfection thou hast travailed for, 
 Nothing ! The beauty that thy body bore 
 Fresh and exulting (Mother, dost not weep ?) 
 Laughter of streams, young flowers, and starry seas. 
 Pillar and palace, heaven-faced images 
 That man has wrought, his tossing heart to ease. 
 Nothing ! To cloud shall vanish the deed done ; 
 The bannered victory, the wrong borne alone. 
 Nothing ! and thou be desolate and none 
 To feel thy desolation : emptiness, 
 Night within night, immense and issueless, 
 
 41 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Till as a breath upon the mirror dies, 
 Fades the last smoke of thy long sacrifice. 
 
 Out of the deeps, trembling, the soul 
 
 Cries through night to the silent pole : 
 
 " I that am want, I that am grief, 
 
 I that am love, I that am mirth, 
 
 I that am fear, I that am fire. 
 
 Though thou clothe me in beauty brief. 
 
 Though I have worn thy sweet attire, 
 
 I, thy endless sorrow, Earth, 
 
 Dwell in the glory of God's desire, 
 
 That kneads for ever in the flesh 
 
 Of man, to make his spirit afresh, 
 
 A marvel more than all thy wandering seas, 
 
 And mightier than thy caverned mysteries, 
 
 Nor stays nor sleeps, but world on world transfuses 
 
 Melted ever to diviner uses. 
 
 Through infinite swift changes burning, 
 
 Itself the end, no end discerning, 
 
 Till all the universe be wrought 
 
 Into its far perfecting thought. 
 
 42 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Then this mind of cloud and rue 
 Shall in eternal mind be new, 
 Mirror of God, pure and alone, 
 See and be seen, know and be known." 
 
TO TIME 
 
 Time, Time, who choosest 
 All in the end well ; 
 Who severely refusest 
 Fames upon trumpets blown 
 Loud for a day, and alone 
 Makest truth to excel : 
 
 Shadow of God, slowly 
 Gathering words, long 
 Scorned, to make them holy. 
 And deeds like stars bright 
 That none perceived in the light, 
 Lifting the weak to be strong : 
 
 Shall I not praise thee. 
 Thou just judge ? Yet O 
 What so long stays thee ? 
 44 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Why must thy feet halt. 
 While our tears grow salt 
 And our old hopes go ! 
 
 Beauty is throned at last ; 
 Truth rings falsehood's knell ; 
 But our strength, our joy is past 
 While our hearts wait thee ■ 
 Time, Time, I hate thee. 
 Hate thee, and rebel. 
 
THE TIGER-LILY 
 
 What wouldst thou with me ? By what spell 
 My spirit allure, absorb, compel ? 
 The last long beam that thou didst drink 
 Is buried now on evening's brink. 
 The garden's leafy alleys lone, 
 With shadowy stem and mossy stone, 
 Intangibly seem now to dress 
 Colour and odour motionless. 
 A stealing darkness breathes around. 
 As if it rose out of the ground. 
 And tinging into it soft gold 
 Ebbs, and the dewy green glooms cold, 
 And dim boughs into black retire. 
 But thou, seven-throated Flower of Fire, 
 Sombring all the shadows near thee. 
 Dost still, as if the night did fear thee, 
 Glory amid the failing hues 
 46 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 And this invading dusk refuse, 
 And breathing out thy languid spice 
 My spirit to thine own entice. 
 
 Warm wafts that linger touch my cheek. 
 What is it in me thou wouldst seek ? 
 Thou meltest all my thoughts away 
 As leaf on leaf is mingled grey 
 In shadow on shadow, past discerning. 
 O cold to touch, to vision burning, 
 What power is in thee so to change 
 And my familiar sense estrange ? 
 Thou seemest born within a mind 
 That has no ken of human kind ; 
 Remote from quick heart, curious brain, 
 Feeling in joy, thinking in pain. 
 Remote as beauty of sleeping snow 
 Is from a flame's wild shredded glow ; 
 Remote from mirth, anger or care. 
 Or the deep wound and want of prayer. 
 Yet like some word of splendid speech 
 Beyond our human hearing's reach, 
 47 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Whose meaning, could its sound be known, 
 Might earth's imprisoned secret own 
 That binds as with a viewless thread 
 This throbbing heart of joy and dread 
 With tremblings of the wayside grass 
 And pillars of the mountain pass 
 And circling of the stars extreme 
 In boundless heights of heaven. 
 
 I dream 
 My dark heart into earth, I heap 
 My spirit over with cold sleep, 
 Resign my senses, one by one, 
 To glooms that never saw the sun. 
 Fade from this self to what behind 
 Earth's myriad shapes is urging blind, 
 Am emptied of man's name, become 
 A blankness, as the mountain dumb. 
 If so I may attain to win 
 The secret thou art rooted in. 
 
 Can life renounce not life ? Must still 
 The inexorably moving will 
 48 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Seek and make rankle the dulled sting 
 
 Of essence ? Must the desert spring 
 
 Revive, and the forgotten seed 
 
 Be drawn again by its old need 
 
 Through blind beginnings of a sense, 
 
 And dark desire of diiference, 
 
 And fear, and hope that feeds on fear, 
 
 To its own destined character ? 
 
 I cannot lose nor abdicate 
 
 The separateness of my state, 
 
 Nor thou, that out of burial drawn 
 
 Through the black earth didst shoot and dawn 
 
 Tender and small and green, and mount 
 
 In air, a springing, silent fount, 
 
 Until the cold bud, sheathed so long, 
 
 Slow swelled and burst like sudden song 
 
 Into the sun's delight, and naught 
 
 Of costliest tissue ever wrought. 
 
 Fragrant and in rare colours dyed. 
 
 For the white body of a bride 
 
 Or king's anointing feast, could so 
 
 Enrich the noon or inly glow 
 
 4(9 D 
 
Auguries 
 
 To lose the sweetly-kindled sense 
 In mystery of magnificence. 
 
 Was there no cost to make thee fair ? 
 Did no far-off long pains prepare 
 Those clustered curves of incense-breath ? 
 Did nothing suffer unto death 
 To poise thee in thy glory ? Came 
 No tinge upon thy coloured flame 
 From sighs ? Was there no bosom bled 
 That thou mightest be perfected — 
 As, serving his taskmaster's doom 
 A brown slave patient at the loom 
 Toils, weaving some fine web of gold, 
 More precious than his race, to fold 
 In soft attire an idle queen, 
 When long his own thin hands have been 
 Dust, but in all their toil arrayed 
 She through her pillared palace-shade 
 Glows flower-like, and her young gaze has 
 No thought of any deep Alas ! 
 Threaded into the sumptuous vest 
 50 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 That lies upon her perfumed breast ; 
 Or as at crimsoned eve on high 
 Some dying warrior turns his eye 
 Where, lifted over spear and sword 
 Among the loud victorious horde, 
 A golden trophy gleams with blood 
 That from his own spent body flowed, 
 And trumpets sound across the sand 
 To sunset in a conquered land ? 
 
 thou wast from life's weltering ore 
 Breathed by enchanting mind before 
 Man was in his own shape. Far, far 
 Thou seemest as the evening star ! 
 Yet movest me like that lone light 
 Fetched through the ages of the night 
 Into this breathing garden-close ; 
 Or like the things that no man knows 
 In a child's eyes ; or like, for one 
 Watching a seaward-sinking sun, 
 Beyond cold wastes of water pale 
 The dim communion of a sail. 
 51 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Ah ! though I know not what thou art, 
 Yet in the fastness of my heart 
 How shall I tell what lies unwrought 
 Into the figured films of thought, 
 Uncoloured yet by sharp or sweet, 
 Or what forge of transforming heat 
 Threatens this world of use and fact 
 Wherewith the busy brain is packed? 
 Thou art of me, O Flower of Flame, 
 What is not uttered, has no name. 
 The springing of a want unmated, 
 A joy no fallen hour has dated. 
 Some of my mystery thou boldest. 
 Secretly, splendidly unfoldest. 
 
 52 
 
THE BOWL OF WATER 
 
 She is eight years old. 
 When she laughs, her eyes laugh ; 
 Light dances in her eyes ; 
 She tosses back her long hair 
 And with a song replies ; 
 Then on light feet she darts away 
 Tripping, mischievously gay. 
 But now into this room of shadow 
 Coming slowly with the sun's long ray 
 And all the morning on her simple hair, 
 O how serious-eyed 
 She steps pre-occupied 
 Holding a bowl of water 
 Poised in her fingers' care, — 
 Water quivering with cool gleams 
 And wavering and a-roll 
 Within the clear glass bowl, 
 53 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 That brimmed and luminous seems 
 
 A wonder and a shining secrecy, 
 
 As if it were the world's most precious thing. 
 
 So open-clear that all have passed it by. 
 
 Cut stalks of iris lie 
 
 On the bare table, flowers and swelling buds 
 
 Clasped in close curves up to the purple tips 
 
 That shall to-morrow burst 
 
 And shoot a splendid wing, 
 
 When they have drawn into their veins the spring 
 
 Which those young hands, with the drops bright on 
 
 them. 
 So all intently bring ; 
 Costless felicity, 
 Living and unbought ! 
 But over me, O flowers 
 That neither ask nor sigh, 
 Comes the thought. 
 How all this world is wanting and athirst ! 
 
 54 
 
FERRY HINKSEY 
 
 Beyond the ferry water 
 That fast and silent flowed, 
 She turned, she gazed a moment, 
 Then took her onward road 
 
 Between the winding willows 
 To a city white with spires • 
 It seemed a path of pilgrims 
 To the home of earth's desires. 
 
 Blue shade of golden branches 
 Spread for her journeying. 
 Till he that lingered lost her 
 Among the leaves of Spring. 
 
 55 
 
IN THE FOREST 
 
 The beeches towering high 
 Greenly cloud the sky. 
 The shadows all are green 
 With living sun unseen. 
 O wonderful the sound 
 Of green leaves all around, 
 When nothing yet is heard 
 Of windy branches stirred 
 But wavering lights alone 
 Innumerably blown 
 Come trembling, and then cease 
 Upon a trembling peace. 
 What breathed in it ? A sigh ? 
 Or something yet more shy 
 Of speech ? A spirit-kiss ? 
 A waft of fairy bliss 
 That seeks for voice on our 
 56 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Lips, there to find its flower 
 In some sweet syllable ? 
 O Love, I cannot tell ; 
 But light brims in your eyes 
 And makes divine replies. 
 
 67 
 
THE FOREST PINE 
 
 A HUNDEED autumns fallen in fire 
 
 To dust and mould 
 
 Have faded from their perished gold 
 
 To throne thee higher, 
 
 O Titan pine, that soarest straight 
 
 From ground to sky without a mate. 
 
 Like one desire. 
 
 Dark is the hollow as a cup 
 
 Of shadow immense, 
 
 Of daylight-daunting dimness, whence 
 
 Thou springest up 
 
 Far into light, to take thy fill 
 
 Of splendour, solitary in still 
 
 Magnificence. 
 
 58 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Leaves of the low brake hide a stir 
 
 Of small soft things : 
 
 Life, busy in flit of secret wings 
 
 And slinking fur, 
 
 Pricks buried seeds that upward thrust. 
 
 And green through germinating dust 
 
 Triumphant stings. 
 
 But thou, that seemest earth to scorn 
 
 And air to claim. 
 
 With aU thy plumy spire aflame 
 
 And crest upborne 
 
 In the blue air, so far, so high, 
 
 As if the silence of the sky 
 
 About thee came. 
 
 Thou hidest all the sappy stream 
 
 That in thee swells ; 
 
 Motionless fibre nothing tells : 
 
 And thou dost seem 
 
 To tower in glorious ignorance 
 
 Of earth's small stir and chafe, a trance, 
 
 A soaring dream ! 
 
 59 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 And in a trance thou boldest me 
 
 With bated will ; 
 
 And I am still, as thou art still, 
 
 My spirit free. 
 
 My body charm-dissolved to naught 
 
 But the vibration of a thought, 
 
 If thought could be. 
 
 O hush ! within the blood is felt 
 
 An airy fear, 
 
 A faltering ; and the heart can hear 
 
 The silence melt 
 
 To something frailer than a sound 
 
 Borne from the wide horizon's bound 
 
 To the inward ear. 
 
 Slowly, ah ! slowly, a hush begins, 
 A trembling, where 
 Those branches sleep on golden air, 
 And gradual wins 
 A voice, a music, a long surge. 
 Sweet as a song, sad as a dirge. 
 Sighed out like prayer ! 
 60 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 The singer knows not what he sings. 
 
 A lonely sound 
 
 Comes trembling through him from profound 
 
 Aerial springs. 
 
 The songs, the sighs, the world exiled, 
 
 Seek him and in his heart-throbs wild 
 
 Still their wild wings. 
 
 61 
 
FIDE ET LITERIS 
 
 (written for the fourth centenary 
 
 OF ST. PAUl/s SCHOOE) 
 
 When the long-clouded spirit of Europe drew 
 Life from Greek springs, frost could no longer bind, 
 And old truth shone like fresh dawn on the blind, 
 Our Founder sowed his pregnant seed : he knew 
 No crabbed rule ; rather he chose a clue 
 That should emband us of our historied kind 
 Comrades, and keep in us a morning mind. 
 Since to the wise Learning is always New. 
 In Faith and Letters he enshrined his light ; 
 Faith, the divine adventure that holds on 
 Through this world's forest into worlds unknown, 
 And Letters, that since speech on earth began 
 As one unended sentence burning write 
 The hope, the triumph, and the tears of Man. 
 
 62 
 
PAST AND FUTURE 
 
 Past is the past ! But no, it is not past, 
 In us, in us, it quickens, wants, aspires ; 
 And on our hearts the unknown dead have cast 
 The hunger and the thirst of their desires. 
 
 Unknown the pangs, bhe peace we too prepare ! 
 What shakes this bosom shall reverberate 
 Through ages unconceived : in that deep lair 
 The unguessed, unhoped, undreaded issues wait. 
 
 Our pregnant acts are all unprophesied. 
 We dream sublime conclusions ; destine, plan. 
 Build and unbuild ; yet turn no jot aside 
 The something infinite that moves in Man. 
 
 We write The End where fate has scarce begun ; 
 And no man knows the thing that he has done. 
 
 63 
 
THUNDER ON THE DOWNS 
 
 Wide earth, wide heaven, and in the summer air 
 Silence ! The summit of the Down is bare 
 Between the climbing crests of wood ; but those 
 Great sea-winds, wont, when the wet South-West 
 
 blows, 
 To rock tall beeches and strong oaks aloud 
 And strew torn leaves upon the streaming cloud, 
 To-day are idle, slumbering far aloof. 
 Under the solemn height and gorgeous roof 
 Of cloud-built sky, all earth is indolent. 
 Wandering hum of bees and thymy scent 
 Of the short turf enrich pure loneliness ; 
 Scarcely an airy topmost-twining tress 
 Of bryony quivers where the thorn it wreathes ; 
 Hot fragrance from the honeysuckle breathes. 
 And sweet the rose floats on the arching briar's 
 Green fountain, sprayed with delicate frail fires. 
 
 64 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 For clumps of thicket, dark beneath the blaze 
 
 Of the high westering sun, beset the ways 
 
 Of smooth grass narrowing where the slope runs steep 
 
 Down to green woods, and glowing shadows keep 
 
 A freshness round the mossy roots, and cool 
 
 The light that sleeps as in a chequered pool 
 
 Of golden air. O woods, I love you well, 
 
 I love the flowers you hide, your ferny smell ; 
 
 But here is sweeter solitude, for here 
 
 My heart breathes heavenly space ; the sky is near 
 
 To thought, with heights that fathomlessly glow ; 
 
 And the eye wanders the wide land below. 
 
 And this is England ! June's undarkened green 
 Gleams on far woods ; and in the vales between 
 Grey hamlets, older than the trees that shade 
 Their ripening meadows, are in quiet laid, 
 Themselves a part of the warm, fruitful ground. 
 The little hills of England rise around ; 
 The little streams that wander from them shine 
 And with their names remembered names entwine 
 Of old renown and honour, fields of blood 
 
 65 E 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 High causes fought on, stubborn hardihood 
 For freedom spent, and songs, our noblest pride, 
 That in the heart of England never died. 
 And burning still make splendour of our tongue. 
 Glories enacted, spoken, suffered, sung, 
 You lie emblazoned on this land now sleeping ; 
 And southward, over leagues of forest sweeping 
 White on the verge glistens the famous sea. 
 That English wave, on which so haughtily 
 Towered her sails, and one sail homeward bore 
 Past capes of silently lamenting shore 
 Victory's dearest dead. O shores of home, 
 Since by the vanished watch-fire shields of Rome 
 Dinted this upland turf, what hearts have ached 
 To see you far away, what eyes have waked 
 Ere dawn to watoh those cliffs of long desire 
 One after one rise in their voiceless choir 
 Out of the twilight over the rough blue 
 Like music ! , . . 
 
 But now heavy gleams imbrue 
 The inland air: breathless the valleys hold 
 
 66 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Their colours in a veil of sultry gold 
 
 With mingled shadows that have ceased to crawl ; 
 
 For far in heaven is thunder ! Over all 
 
 A single cloud in slow magnificence 
 
 Climbs like a mountain, gradual and immense, 
 
 With awful head unstirring, and moved on 
 
 Against the zenith, towers above the sun. 
 
 And still it thickens luminous fold on fold 
 
 Of fatal colour, ominously scrolled 
 
 And fleeced with fire ; above the sun it towers 
 
 Like some vast thought quickening a world not ours 
 
 Remote in the waste blue, as if behind 
 
 Its rim were splendour that could smite us blind, 
 
 So doom-piled and intense it crests heaven's height 
 
 And mounting makes a menace of the light. 
 
 A menace ! Yes, for when light comes, we fear. 
 
 Light that may touch, as the pure angel-spear. 
 
 Us to ourselves, make visible, make start 
 
 The apparition of the very heart 
 
 And mystery of our thoughts, awaked from under 
 
 The mask of cheating habit, and to thunder 
 
 67 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Bare in a moment of white fire what we 
 Have feared and fled, our own reality. 
 
 And if a lightning now were loosed in flame 
 Out of the darkness of the cloud to claim 
 Thy heart, O England, how wouldst thou be known 
 In that hour ? How to the quick core be shown 
 And seen ? What cry shoiild from thy very soul 
 Answer the judgment of that thunder-roll ! 
 
 I hear a voice arraign thee. " Where is now 
 The exaltation that once lit thy brow ? 
 Thou countest all thy ocean-sundered lands, 
 Thou heapest up the labours of thy hands, 
 Thou seest all thy ships upon the seas. 
 But in thine own heart mean idolatries 
 Usurp devotion, choke thee and annul 
 Noble excess of spirit, and make dull 
 Thine eyes, enfleshed with much dominion. 
 Art thou so great and is the glory gone ? 
 Do these bespeak thy freedom who deflower 
 Time, and make barren every senseless hour. 
 Who from themselves hurry, like men afraid 
 
 68 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Lest what they are be to themselves betrayed ? 
 
 Or those who in their huddled thousands sweat 
 
 To buy the sleep that helps them to forget ? — 
 
 Life lies unused, life with its loveliness ! 
 
 While the cry ravens still, ' Possess, Possess ! ' 
 
 And there is no possession. All the lust 
 
 Of gainful man is quieted in dust ; 
 
 His faith, his fear, his joy, his doom he owns. 
 
 No more : the rest is parcelled with his bones 
 
 Save what the imagination of his heart 
 
 Can to the labour of his hands impart. 
 
 Making stones serve his spirit's desire, and breathe. 
 
 But thou, what dost thou to the world bequeath. 
 
 Who gatherest riches in a waste of mind 
 
 Unto what end, confidently blind. 
 
 Forgetful of the things that grow not old 
 
 And alone live and are not bought or sold ? " 
 
 Speaks that voice truth ? Is it for this that great 
 And tender spirits suffered scorn and hate. 
 Loved to the utmost, poured themselves, gave all 
 Nor counted cost, spirits imperial ? 
 
 69 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Where are they now, they that our memory guard 
 Among the nations ? Shall I say enstarred 
 And throned aloof ? No, not from heavens of thought 
 Watching our muddied brief procession, not 
 Judges sublime above us, without share 
 In our thronged ways of struggle, hope, despair. 
 But in our blood, our dreams, our deeds they stir. 
 Strive on our lips for language, shame and spur 
 The sluggard in us, out of darkness come 
 Like summoned champions when the world is dumb ; 
 Within our hearts they wait with all they gave : 
 Woe to us, woe, if we become their grave ! 
 It shall not be. Darken thy pall, and trail. 
 Thunder of heaven, above the valleys pale ! 
 Another England in my vision glows. 
 And she is armed within ; at last she knows 
 Herself, and what to her own soul belongs. 
 Mid the world's irremediable wrongs 
 She keeps her faith ; and nothing of her name 
 Or of her handiwork but doth proclaim 
 Her purpose. Her own soul hath made her free, 
 Not circumstance ; she knows no victory 
 
 70 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Save of the mind : in her is nothing done, 
 No wrong, no shame, no glory of any one. 
 But is the cause of all and each, a thing 
 Felt like a fire to kindle and to sting 
 The proud blood of a nation. On her brows 
 Is hope ; her body doth her spirit house 
 Express and eloquent, not dumb and frore ; 
 And her voice echoes over sea and shore. 
 And all the lands and isles that are her own 
 In choric interchange and antiphon 
 Answer, as fancy hears in yonder cloud 
 From vale to vale repeated low and loud 
 The still-suspended thunder. 
 
 Hearts of Youth, 
 High-beating, ardent, quick in hope and ruth 
 And noble anger, O wherever now 
 You dedicate your uncorrupted vow 
 To be an energy of Light, a sword 
 Of the ever-living Will, amid abhorred 
 Din of the reeking street and populous den 
 Where under the great stars blind lusts of men 
 
 71 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 War on each other, or escaped to hills 
 Where peace the solitary evening fills, 
 Or far remote on other soils of earth 
 Keeping the dearness of your fathers' hearth 
 On vast plains of the West, or Austral strands 
 Of the warm under-world, or storied lands 
 Of the orient sun, or over ocean ways 
 Stemming the wave through blue or stormy days. 
 Wherever, as the circling light slopes round, 
 On human lips is heard an English sound, 
 O scattered, silent, hidden and unknown. 
 Be lifted up, for you are not alone ! 
 High-beating hearts, to your deep vows be true ! 
 Live out your dreams, for England lives in you. 
 
 72 
 
THE TRAM 
 
 (in the midlands) 
 
 I 
 
 A GRINDING swerve, a hissing spurt, 
 And then a droning through the dirt ! 
 The tram gUdes on its wonted way 
 Of everyday, of everyday. 
 Past every corner still the same 
 Squat houses huddle, meanly serried, 
 An image of the mute and maim 
 With life behind their windows buried ; 
 Blank windows staring under slate 
 That presses on them desolate 
 As eyes bereft of brows, and drips 
 On puddled, flowerless garden strips. 
 
 Is it evening, noon or morn ? 
 Is it Autumn, is it Spring ? 
 Nothing tells but the forlorn 
 
 73 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Rain that is over everything. 
 A rain that seems too slow to fall 
 And drifts, an immaterial pall 
 Of wetness in the air ; it leaves 
 A dismal glistening on the eaves, 
 And grimed upon the pavement lies. 
 For the dirt is in the very skies. 
 
 Like without, and like within ! 
 Dull bodies clatter out and in. 
 And the beU clangs, as they subside 
 On the long seat, and on we glide, 
 Defensive creatures, all askance 
 At one another ! Small eyes lance 
 Suspicion ; fingers tighten close 
 On baskets ; thin lips will not lose 
 A word too much, and skirts draw shy 
 From any touch too neighbourly. 
 And now a bald-head, grossly quaking 
 And lurching round for elbow space. 
 Sets a black-beaded bonnet shaking 
 Above a pinched averted face 
 
 74 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Or stiffly-bastioned heaving bust 
 That virtuously expands distrust. 
 
 And all the fluttered narrow looks 
 Appear like little painful books 
 Of soiled accounts, where bargains keep 
 Their cherished tale of capture cheap. 
 For life is all a cheapening, 
 And the rain is over everything, 
 And there is neither mirth nor woe. 
 Who made it so, who made it so ? 
 
 76 
 
AUGURIE'S 
 
 II 
 
 As I muse, as I muse, 
 
 Numbed at heart, with eyelids leaden, 
 
 Stupefying senses lose 
 
 All but sounds and sights that deaden ; 
 
 Glassy gaze and shuffled feet, 
 
 Humid glide of the endless street, 
 
 Passing by with rank on rank 
 
 Of dripping roofs and windows blank, 
 
 Till one dull motion drones the brain 
 
 Out of meaning, out of time. 
 
 And the blood beats to a chime 
 
 As of bells with mouth inane. 
 
 And now a monstrous ark it seems 
 That's hurried with the speed of dreams 
 Through streets of ages ! On it drives 
 Among unnumbered years and lives. 
 And now the sound grows like a surging, 
 76 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 As if this speed a host were urging, 
 And in the sound are voices coming 
 Thick, and tumultuous music drumming ; 
 And savage odours are astir 
 Of forest leaves and hidden fur, 
 And naked limbs of hunters glide 
 And warriors in the great sun ride, 
 And mutinous-nostrilled horses champing 
 With restless necks are strongly stamping. 
 The Roman purple passes proud 
 Like an eagle through a cloud. 
 Lo, knights-at-arms with pennons dancing 
 To death's adventure gay advancing, 
 And here a queen that is a bride 
 Crimson-robed and lonely-eyed, 
 And there a pilgrim's dusty feet 
 Faring to the heavenly city ; 
 And now an idle beggar singing 
 How the sun and wind are sweet, 
 A wayside song, a wanderer's ditty : 
 And stiU around, out of the ground. 
 The armies of the dead are springing ; 
 77 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 And with unearthly speed and number 
 
 Compelled like those that walk in slumber 
 
 They follow, follow ! And at my ear 
 
 An imp that squats with demon leer 
 
 Is screaming, See the Triumph go ! 
 
 See for whom the trumpets blow ! 
 
 The prophesied, that goes before us ! 
 
 This is he, Time's crown and wonder 
 
 That has the very stars for plunder ; 
 
 This is he, the Promethean, 
 
 (Hark the ever-rolling paean 
 
 With a wilderness of apes for chorus !) 
 
 Who fetched from heaven the stormy fire 
 
 To serve and toil for his desire. 
 
 And plumbed the globe, and spoiled old Earth 
 
 Of all the secrets of her birth ; 
 
 See him, throned triumphant there, 
 
 Like a toad, with glassy stare ; 
 
 Eyes, and sees not ; ears, and hears not ! 
 
 Heart, and hopes not ; soul, and fears not ! 
 
 78 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 III 
 
 A boy with a bunch of primroses ! 
 He sits uneasy, flushed of cheek. 
 With wandering eyes and does not speak. 
 His hands are hot ; the flowers are his. 
 
 But Spring, O Spring is in the world. 
 And eager fancy forward flying 
 Sees httle fronds almost uncurled 
 Where still the dead brown bracken 's lying, 
 And a thousand thousand shining drops 
 Upon the yoimg leaves of the copse. 
 The spurge has all his green cups fiUed — 
 A gust wiU shake and brim them over — 
 From cuckoo-flowers the rain is spilled ; 
 I smell first sweetness of the clover. 
 Long tendrils of the vetch are thirsting, 
 White blossom on the thorn is bursting ; 
 Twigs redden on the sapling oaks 
 79 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Above the grass that shoots and soaks ; 
 
 The streams flow fast by reed and rush ; 
 
 Loose notes come fluted from the thrush ; 
 
 In forky boughs and leafy shade 
 
 There's busyness for every wing ; 
 
 And sweet through stalk and root and blade 
 
 Run juices of the wine of Spring. 
 
 But the primrose perfume, faint and rare 
 
 Is like a sigh of Spring forsaken. 
 
 O shy soft beauty, torn and taken ! 
 
 O delicate bruised tissue fair ! 
 
 You are like the eyes of an outcast fond, 
 
 Or a face seen at a prison-grate : 
 
 For Beauty 's but a vagabond 
 
 And knows no home and has no mate. 
 
 80 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 IV 
 
 Alas ! what dungeon walls we rear, 
 For our possession, round us here ! 
 We make a castle of defence 
 Out of the dullness of the sense ; 
 Possess our burrow like the mole ; 
 And with the blundering hands of chance 
 Grow cruel in our ignorance. 
 What is another's springing soul 
 That I should seek to force and bind it ? 
 To catch my gain where it has tripped, 
 To thrust it down when it has slipped, 
 To stupefy and dumb and blind it. 
 Fortress my virtue with its failing, 
 And kindle courage at its quailing ? 
 What is another's thought, that I 
 Should wish it mine in effigy ? 
 Ah ! we that grasp and bind and tame 
 
 81 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 It is ourselves, ourselves we maim ; 
 
 We maim the world. The very Spring 
 
 Stops all mute and will not sing, 
 
 The sapless branches will not quicken, 
 
 The cells of secret honey sicken. 
 
 Giant brambles writhe and twist 
 
 About the trees in poisonous mist. 
 
 The spider fattens ; flies oppress. 
 
 And the buds are blackened promises, 
 
 Nothing stirs, but the leaf is shed, 
 
 And all the world of wonder 's dead ! 
 
 O for the touch that shall awake ! 
 
 for the word that shall renew ! 
 
 And all this crust of sense shall break 
 
 And the world of wonder pierce us through ; 
 
 The scales be fallen from a sight 
 
 Ravished with fountains of delight. 
 
 And the sad dullness of our scorn 
 
 Be like remembered night at morn : 
 
 Then we shall feel what we have made 
 
 Of one another, and be afraid. 
 
 8& 
 
TOWERS OF ITALY 
 
 Nevee were towers so fair, so bold, 
 Passionately springing, arrogant towers ! 
 Nor air so blue over roofs so old. 
 Nor on ancient walls so rare a gold, 
 When I found my love among the flowers. 
 
 O mighty Spirits, never to be stilled, 
 
 Whose 
 
 orious works concluded seem, 
 unfulfilled. 
 
 ro 
 
 nn« wnr I 
 nn« -nrrt-r i 
 nna wnr i 
 nn« -nrn-r i 
 
 nn« wnr i 
 nn« wnr i 
 nn« -wnr i 
 nna 'wnr i 
 nn« wnr ; 
 nn« wnrO 
 
 Id, you build, 
 out of your dream ? 
 
 She comes from shadow of streets below. 
 And surely^ O Spirits, you were there. 
 Pacing among the shadows ; lo. 
 In her eyes is a light, on her face a glow 
 As she comes through a golden air. 
 
 83 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Do you feel, do you breathe and throb again 
 In her bosom's beat and shining eyes, — 
 As an old chant heavy with world-old pain 
 Is lifted afresh in a splendid strain 
 On young lips, up to the skies ? 
 
 My love is fair as a voice that sings. 
 
 In a scented garden of joyous flowers. 
 
 Do the old walls keep their buried things ? 
 
 Yet the air is astir as with throbbing of wings 
 
 And heaven with the springing of the towers. 
 
 The hills lift a loneliness around ; 
 But my love has a light about her head ; 
 And as if they uttered names renowned. 
 Bells from the towers to the silences resound — 
 Voices of the youth of the dead ! 
 
 84 
 
VIGIL 
 
 In the hallow of pale night upon the moor 
 The silence blows a perfume : O but hark ! 
 A sound is in the bosom of the dark, 
 Breathed like a secret from the glimmering shore ; 
 A vigil of unearthly sound, the sea 
 That never slumbers and begins anew. 
 And melts into our hearts amid the dew, 
 
 to you and me. 
 
 is the old earth, 
 voice could frame 
 Speech, or the human dearness of a name. 
 To glorify man's longing or his mirth, 
 Ere ever any place was historied 
 For hearts that sever yet their own home keep, 
 That sound comes immemorial like sleep 
 Fresh, with the morning in dark softness hid. 
 
 85 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 O Love, O Love, were we not there, we too, 
 
 In far nights and wild silences ? Were we 
 
 Not part of this old secret of the sea ? 
 
 For O your kiss, thrilling my body through. 
 
 Touches me from eternity, as if I 
 
 And you were of the things before Time came 
 
 To measure men's desire and loss and shame. 
 
 And no use disenchants this mystery. 
 
 86 
 
THE PORCH OF STARS 
 
 As in a porch of stars we stand ; the night 
 
 Throbs through us, O Love, with its worlds of light, 
 
 And mingles us in glory of one breath, 
 
 One infinite ignorance of Time and Death. 
 
 Behold, I am dyed in thee, and thou in me ; 
 
 We are the colours of infinity, 
 
 We are two flames that are one flame. 
 
 We are but Love, and have no name. 
 But did we part, O Love, if we could part, 
 The very blood were taken from my heart. 
 Time and Death would ride the night 
 Then, and ended were all light, 
 The stream of stars would fall like stone 
 And heaven's utmost height be darkened, 
 And we be lost, like dust that 's blown. 
 Like a cry, where none has hearkened. 
 
 87 
 
THE PROMISE 
 
 What wonder of what hope dost thou enfold, 
 Whose eyes are all filled with futurity ? 
 What shape of more than beauty dost thou mould 
 With desire's strength out of the dim to-be ? 
 
 Thy bosom is the haunt of holy fears. 
 
 Shadows are all about thee, whispering 
 
 Deep words and glorious names from the full years ; 
 
 But like the stars in heaven thy pulses sing 
 
 Of a voice sweeter than all tones yet heard ; 
 Of a heart richer than the summer's store ; 
 Of earth awakened from old bonds and spurred 
 To run a new race for her conqueror. 
 
 Thou waitest, thy thoughts glowing, like the Night ; 
 And in thee buds the flower, the marvel. Light. 
 
 88 
 
A MOTHER'S SONG 
 
 OvEE fast-closed baby eyes 
 In the garden's golden air 
 Blossom-white the butterflies 
 Hover, hurry, part and pair, 
 Sudden shinings, flown nowhere ! 
 Blue, above, the unbounded skies ! 
 
 Little one, downy head, 
 O fingers clasping, shaped and small. 
 Laid in soft nest of thy bed. 
 How the trees are Titan-tall 
 Over thee that sleepest, all 
 Ignorant of thy hope and dread ! 
 
 O so small, and all around 
 Life so vast works wonders new. 
 Yet to thee is set no bound 
 
 89 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 What thou shalt desire and do, 
 Find and fashion and hold true ; 
 Deeps thou hast no thought can sound : 
 
 Thou art sought by powers unknown ; 
 On thy trembling heart-strings play 
 Airs unheard, O little one ! 
 Whisperings of far away. 
 Music made of day and day — 
 Lands of promise, all thine own ! 
 
 Wide as heaven the secrecies 
 Thou dost fold : ev'n now, ev'n here, 
 Thou dost touch infinities. 
 While o'er thee in hope, in fear, 
 My white wishes, far and near. 
 Hover like the butterflies. 
 
 90 
 
ONE YEAR OLD 
 
 Is it we that are wise, is it we, 
 
 Who have bought with a price of grief 
 
 A wisdom seldom free 
 
 From scorn or disbehef. 
 
 Who find this world fulfil 
 
 An end that is not our will, 
 
 Who toil with the light in our eyes 
 
 Showing us scarce begun 
 
 The things we meant to have done, 
 
 Is it we, is it we, that are wise ? 
 
 Or 0, is it you, is it you, 
 That have yet no language of ours, 
 But whose eyes are a laiighter blue 
 As of light slipping under the showers, 
 Whose carol, sweeter than words. 
 Trills clear as an April bird's, 
 91 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 Or a dancing brook on the hill, — 
 Blithe springs of a confidence 
 That bubbles, we know not whence. 
 And has no knowledge of ill ? 
 
 Lo, our desires have gone 
 Like ships to a future far 
 And vanished in mist alone 
 By no befriending star. 
 But all to you is a wonder 
 Fresh as the sky, whereunder 
 Life moves to pledge delight ; 
 You need no hope to bear 
 The day through the day's care ; 
 Your joys are all in sight. 
 
 You want not a word to tell 
 What lies beyond our guess 
 And springs like a sparkling well 
 In a lovely speechlessness. 
 And we that have shaped with art 
 Language of mind and of mart, 
 92 
 
AUGURIES 
 
 We have never yet found speech 
 For the heart's blood deepest stirred : 
 Something is flown with a word 
 Or is buried beneath our reach. 
 
 Our speech is spun from the pain 
 Of thought and heavy with years, 
 And dyed with an ancient stain 
 From passion and blood and tears. 
 But 0, I vow, when I hear 
 Your wordless carol clear, 
 I would cast this speech that endures 
 As a sorry old patchwork coat, 
 Could I but re-fill my throat 
 With the liquid joy in yours. 
 
BECAUSE THOU ART NEAREST 
 
 Because thou art nearest 
 
 To the mystery of the fire 
 
 That is Earth's and the soul's 
 
 And the body's desire, 
 
 Whereof we were made 
 
 As a song out of sound, 
 
 Trembling together 
 
 And together enwound, 
 
 O frailer, more fading 
 
 The hope and the lure 
 
 That are not where thou art : — 
 
 They fade nor endure. 
 
 But in thee is the secret, 
 
 The star, and the fire. 
 
 Ever nearer and dearer, 
 
 My joy, my desire. 
 
 94 
 
SEVEN YEARS 
 
 Seven years have flown like seven days, 
 Like seven days of shining weather, 
 Since we, forsaking single ways, 
 Trod earth and faced the skies together. 
 The old is new, the new is old, 
 And who shall reckon, one or seven. 
 The years that Time has never told ? 
 He numbers not the days of Heaven. 
 
 96 
 
SORROW 
 
 Woe to him that has not known the woe of man, 
 Who has not felt within him burning all the want 
 Of desolated bosoms, since the world began ; 
 Felt, as his own, the burden of thd fears that daunt ; 
 Who has not eaten failure's bitter bread, and been 
 Among those ghosts of hope that haunt the day, unseen. 
 
 Only when we are hurt with all the hurt untold, — 
 In us the thirst, the hunger, and ours the helpless hands. 
 The palsied effort vain, the darkness and the cold, — 
 Then, only then, the Spirit knows and understands, 
 And finds in every sigh breathed out beneath the sun 
 The human heart that makes us infinitely one. 
 
 96 
 
E. H. P. : IN MEMORY 
 
 Home from the wounds of Earth and wasting Time 
 The marvel of her beauty and morning prime 
 She has taken glorious with the dew of youth 
 Still on her thoughts, those thoughts that from her eyes 
 Gleamed still or splendid, unafraid of truth ; 
 All her white passion, all the secrecies 
 Of wild, sweet fire that her heart guarded, all 
 Her heart's young rose, ere yet one leaf could fade or 
 fall! 
 
 She that was made like a song nobly wrought 
 In fine, fair mould of movement, speech and thought, 
 With glory of hair about the buoyant head ; — 
 In breaking voices we her beauty tell : 
 But she is radiant, she is perfected. 
 Where our long hopes far from our sorrows dwell, 
 A song unended, but a song so sweet, 
 No tongue of mortal dares its melody complete. 
 
 97 G 
 
FEINTED AT 
 
 THE BALLAUTYNE PRESS 
 
 LONDON