(Etotmli HuiuetBitg Slibtary 3ltl;ara, Hrw $ork BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 PR6039.U77I3"""'™""''-"'"^ In time like glass. 3 1924 013 233 048 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013233048 IN TIME LIKE GLASS By the same Author The Hunter and other Poems The Dark Fire Paris and Helen Sidgwick & yackson Lid IN TIME LIKE GLASS by W. y. Turner London Sidgwick &* "Jackson Ltd 1 92 1, h^S^<]g■ To GH CONTENTS TN TIME LIKE GLASS A The Navigators Men fade like Rocks page I 2 3 Giraffe and Tree 4 Woman walking on the Seashore towards her Lover 5 Portrait of a Lady Love: a Dream 7 9 'There came a Lion into the Capitol ' II The Towers of Tantalus 12 Clerks on Holiday 13 The Forest Bird 17 Dreaming: a Song of Africa The Ape Man with Girl 18 20 22 The Search for the Nightingale Stars 23 27 Tent, my dearest Tent 28 Marriage Death 30 31 Lovers across the Sea 36 Maidens 37 Love Moon- Music 39 41 CONTENTS Earth at Night page 43 Light and Darkness 44 Multitudes 46 Sorrowing for Childhood Departed 48 A Love Song 50 The Dancer 51 Marooned 52 Dying Generations 54 Buphaga SS IN TIME LIKE GLASS IN T I M E like glass the stars are set, And seeming-fluttering butterflies Are fixed fast in Time's glass net With mountains and with maids' bright eyes. Above the cold Cordilleras hung The wingM eagle and the Moon : The gold, snow-throated orchid sprung From gloom where peers the dark baboon : The Himalayas' white, rapt brows ; The jewel-eyed bear that threads their caves ; The lush plains' lowing herds of cows ; That Shadow entering human graves: All these like stars in Time are set. They vanish but can never pass ; The Sun that with them fades is yet Fast-fixed as they in Time like glass. THE NAVIGATORS IS A W the bodies of earth's men Like wharves thrust in the stream of time Whereon cramped navigators climb And free themselves in the warm sun : With outflung arms and shouts of joy Those spirits tramped their human planks; Then pressing close, reforming ranks, They pushed off in the stream again : Cold darkly rotting lay the wharves, Decaying in the stream of time; Slow winding silver tracks of slime Showed bright where came back none. MEN FADE LIKE ROCKS RO C K - L I K E the souls of men Fade, fade in time. Falls on worn surfaces, Slow chime on chime. Sense, like a murmuring dew, Soft sculpturing rain, Or the wind that blows hollowing In every lane. Smooth as the stones that lie Dimmed, water-worn. Worn of the night and day, In sense forlorn. Rock-like the souls of men Fade, fade in time; Smoother than river-rain Falls chime on chime. GIRAFFE AND TREE UP O N a dark ball spun in Time Stands a Giraffe beside a Tree: Of what immortal stuff can that The fading picture be? So, thought I, standing by my love Whose hair, a small black flag. Broke on the universal air With proud and lovely brag: It waved among the silent hills, A wind of shining ebony In Time's bright glass, where mirrored clear Stood the Giraffe beside a Tree. WOMAN WALKING ON THE SEASHORE TOWARDS HER LOVER IS AW Night Striding white-limbed from the sea Across the pale, wet sand. The Sun shone still Over the yellow fields ; translucent trees Bathed on the cliiFs, dropping deep purple veils Upon mauve rocks worn glassy by the tide. A fringe of foam blurred softly on the shore Whence rose the faint susurrus of the sphere That hangs in space, quired by the flocking waves. I looked and thought to see the silver Moon High on the rocky shoulder of the bay. But the bright corn, a sea of greenish gold Asleep in the Sun's eye, very slowly heaved; And then I knew I looked upon my love Who steals like Night into a sunny world And dulls the day's bright girdle of stone hills. Nearer she came ; the Sun went slowly out. And all the bright sea shrank into her gaze, Wherein I saw the stars untimely stream With many shining waters panoplied. A black wind blown, her hair untunable Fell tumbling from her small, melodious profile: And I stood still and longed to hear her voice. Shadow of falling water in sunned rocks, Sprung from the caves within this hollow world Where silver music rings perpetually. Lulling the stones crouched in the dim unseen WOMAN WALKING ON THE SEASHORE Until they take the shapes of gods and idols. And this world 's imaged in a sea of blood. It was the sea of blood I looked upon Wherein those simulacra, Sun and Moon, Do rise and set, and there a ghostly tide Chimes many a bubbling, too-bright apparition On the still cliiF of flesh wherefrom we gaze — Hallucination of a bell angelical In the still air, as though o'er earth's shore rolled Silver susurrus of the Moon's bright sphere. PORTRAIT OF A LADY TH E crocodile has lost its skin To shoe your feet; Crossed, pointed) variegated, arched, They let no love dart in ; And your gloved, armoured hands Set the brain burning like a blood-red Sun On lawn-smooth lands. The Moon has lost its light To your wan face. Night's fishing fleets, the stars. Dragged Time for aeonsere they foundthdse eyes. Antique fires drowsed in many a waveless gem Now on your snowy skin Flicker agen. Worms pale as skies of milk On China's hills Filled Time with coloured clouds ; Draw them about your limbs, And you have drawn From slumbering sense the lovely snowy hills Of milkwhite Dawn. PORTRAIT OF A LADY Time carved your voice from water. Its running chime Rang cold age-long. Trees budded to its tinkling silver stream Ere it grew warm, And charmed the souls of men who lay like rocks Buried in calm. Now in their flesh recumbent, Burning they gaze On you gloved, robed, enamelled like a flower, Cool and as unafraid. Your perfect dress Preserves your beauty to the burning braia's Far-ofF caress. On lawn-smooth lands Among neat-bordered and trimmed shapely plants A perfect O, A blood-red Sun of wild tumultuous fire Hangs o'er the garden where its graven flames Smooth,, violent, cool, invulnerable as you, As marble, glow. love: a dream ON a deep mountain lake there sailed a swan, Far, far away from any human soul; And daily swam with her a speckled trout, Who only left her when deep thunder roUed — Sinking far down where that swan could not dive. So that she tasted bitterest pangs of love. And drooped upon the water like to die. And when that trout came near with the blue sky She brightened over the water like a sail Lifted for harbour after a winter gale. No solitary ship sailing a land-locked sea With her own shadow, and no lonely cloud In water moored, abandoned by the wind, To substance and to spirit cloven, seemed So deeply one as that strange pair I dreamed. Among the mountains woven in my mind. . . Morning and evening her song filled the hills. The shepherds in the lowland heard her cry — Sitting like stones among their scattered sheep — And stood and gazed into the distant air. The mountains, sunk under grey woods of sleep. In spring would wake and shake a million leaves. Flashing gold signals to the speechless sky. Stirring uneasily in their mould-deep beds Until the fickle fires crept away And Autumn found them cloudier than before, Breathed on that shining lake a phantom shore. . . love: a dream And years went by, and never dimmed their love. Her plumage shone as bright as winter snow, And her bright image when the high stars gleamed Still followed that frail shape that steered below. Which could not cry, nor utter sounds of love. But silent at her feet did ever move. There came no herald crying ^ Dream no more! ' But the Night flew with large and glittering eyes, Brushing its purple wing through the dark pines. And when the day gleamed on the mirrored hills, No Shadow flitted through the water's ghosts. For it had passed to some close-shuttered realm, Some country fainter and more dim than theirs. But on the lake a thing of fading snow Glimmered away from that sky-covered world Of air-drawn rock and hill and breathing wood. Trembling, it stretched its snoA^y wings to rise. Flashing bright shapes upon the calm, blue air. Then drooped, and dimly sailed down those bright skies, Sailed slowly on, in the cold voiceless hills. Singing aloud until the lake did cry With quivering mouth up at the empty sky. And darkness soft as dew came dropping down. . . Into deep silence climbed the Hunter's Moon. lo *THERE CAME A LION INTO THE CAPITOl' STRANGE spirit with ink^ hair, Tail tufted stiff in rage, I saw with sudden stare Leap on the printed page. The stillness of its roar From midnight deserts torn Clove silence to the core Like the blare of a great horn, I saw the sudden sky; Cities in crumbling sand; The stars fall wheeling by; The lion roaring stand : The stars fall wheeling by. Their silent, silver stain. Cold on his glittering eye. Cold on his carven mane. The full-orbed Moon shone down, The silence was so loud. From jaws wide-open thrown His voice hung like a cloud. Earth shrank to blackest air. That spirit stiff in rage Into some midnight lair Leapt from the printed page. II THE TOWERS OF TANTALUS TH E Towers of Tantalus I saw Above untrodden streets of Time; The sunlight and the moonlight shone Together on great spars of rime. Terrestrial lilies were those towers In calm sky pools of that dark noon; Calm lay on rocks of frozen light The shadow of the Sun and Moon. Still, bright gold chrysanthemums Shone in the polished, dim, jade walls, And at small windows in still woods Hung snow-curved, shining waterfalls. Those pinnacles, sky-pointed, sang A cloud-embroidered song of doom : The flowers sang in the halls below — Wax sprays of light in ebon gloom. The waters frozen in the woods Were mirrored on the shadowed floors; Cold constellations from the sky Hung low, dream-captvlred at the doors. 'Twas music hewn upon the air Flashed for a moment through these eyes- I beard the trumpets crumple, and I stared once more at transient skies. 12 CLERKS ON HOLIDAY TH E long black trains are stealing from the city one by one. Packed tight in corridors they stand, their holidays begun; Tall, white-faced creatures blinking in the dead un- natural light, Phantoms on to their eyeballs leaping out of the flying night — Trees, lamps, stars, gusts of rain, all jumping in the brain. They rattle through the evening air, hats, sticks and luggage, all Unreal as clowns upon their way to some quiet coun- try hall; Their dumb, high, mournful faces dead as flowers with moon-white eyes. When the soft humanising sun has sunk in chilly skies. And vaguely a thin wind frets the trees' dark silhou- ettes. By midnight some are driving down a narrow country road. The thick trees watch on either side the horse and his dark load; The trees come close about the horse, they seem to talk together; 13 CLERKS ON HOLIDAY The moon is floating in the sky, light as a white owl's feather; Quiet jut the village roofs amid the clanging hoofs. They enter the low farmhouse like men moving in a dream Who see great stars beyond a room, and, in the candle-gleam. They stand beside the window, and their blood's spring-reddened tides Look up in that black world to where, soundless, a frail moon rides In a thin vapour sea of hill and rock and tree. They know not why they gaze upon the moon with troubled blood, They tremble, for their brains are bright with its transparent flood; Slowly they walk in dark-wreathed woods, like men fast bound with spells, To where the faint immortal cry of travelling water dwells, Whose cuckoo voice outsings the noiseof mortal things : The voice of water falling down from leaf and fern and stone. The voice of hidden water on a pilgrimage unknown. The tiny voice that calls shut up in miles of solid rock. As if within this world's stone walls some other world should knockj And press unhurrying by with a strange unhuman cry. 14 CLERKS ON HOLIDAY All day they stare among the trees that stand beside the pools, Hour-long only a leaf will fall, and on mossed boul- der stools They sit and feel the drip of time so infinitely slow There is no motion in their minds, nowhere for time to flow; And from that inner gaze fade years and months and days. The leaves are rustling overhead as they sit bowed and still; A crooked line of restless ants climbs up a little hill ; A thrush with head cocked on one side is showing one bright eye. And sunlight mottling all the ground in silence flickers by — Deep-sunken in a dream trunks of men and forest seem. The sunlight plays upon their hair and flits from place to place; The sunlight stirs within their bones and gilds each pallid face. Bending to falling water and the scent of the coming rose; And blooming softly through the wood the spring wing-footed goes ; Like flowers strangely bright their faces are alight. 15 CLERKS ON HOLIDAY And thrush and robin, birch and oak, the hot sun's dancing rays Work their strong magic in the brain, dumb-still they sit and gaze; And beauty blinds them as they hear spring winds sea-hollowing blow ; Into a far and passionate land with wild starved looks they go; Return! no land can give the life you fain would live. Return, return unto your desks, and mount your office stools. None shall remain within this quiet that broods round . forest pools; The sun will shine on when you' re gone, and still the water fall. When other faces in the wood shall answer that faint call. Shall wander through hot noons followed by slow-paced moons! And sitting deep within the sun I watched them die away, I watched their bodies fade like clouds upon a summer's day, I watched the green boughs waving as in their graves they lie. Their small white faces crumbling as they stare into the sky: And O the sky was bright with an ecstasy of light! i6 THE FOREST BIRD TH E loveliest things of earth are not Her lilies, waterfalls or trees; Or clouds that float like still, white stones Carved upon azure seas; Or snow-white orchids, scarlet-lipped In darkness of damp woods, In hush of shadowy leaves; Or the pale foam that lights the coast Of earth on moonless eves. The moon is lovely, and the sea's Bright shadow on the sand; The phantom vessel as it glides Out from a phantom land; And, hung above the shadowed earth, Moored in a crystal sky. That fleet of phantom lights: These are but beauty's fading flags. Her perishable delights. But in transparency of thought Out of the branched, dark-foliaged word There flits a strange, soft-glimmering light. Shy as a forest bird. Most lovely and most shy it comes From realms of sense unknown. And sings of earthly doom, Of an immortal happiness In the soul's deepening gloom, c 17 DREAMING A SONG OF AFRICA IA M a barbarian out of the sunless forest, Where the trees continually growing spread a murmuring shadow of thunder Over the plains where the sunlight blooms in the golden grass. And I dream I shall see the sunlight slowly, inexo- rably eaten By those dark, slow-spreading impis that rise up out of the ground, Their bushy headdresses shaking as they crowd to the edge of the plains. Lovely are those bare hills where the slender-legged antelopes gather; Their horns against the horizon in the clear grey light of evening: And I stand at the edge of the forest, and I see the red disc sinking. And a million blooms hang drooping, and their colours fade from the fields; And when earth and sky are ashen, I turn back into the forest. Among the huge trunks walking, a Shadow lost by the Sun ; I am dark in the darkness, solitary, onward moving Until I silently enter a tiny circle of firelight. I8 DREAMING There I sit with the Shadows that live in the gloom of the forest, Eating, gesticulating. Soon we lie down in deep silence Rolled in bur blankets of darkness, But 1 hold a bright patch of the sky with those hills and earth's delicate antlers. 19 THE APE THE trees dream all night on the tops of the hills, The ghostly water a dark hollow fills. Its long white shadow falling through the trees Where the Ape squats silent, his hands on his knees. The white shadow shines in that small dim mind; The Moon travels there; the star-hordes wind With pin-head lamps through the dark, dark blue Where faint cloud-like thoughts collect and pursue. The scent of the forest, the rippling streams; The butterflies flitting through the shaking tree- dreams; The twittering of birds, the roar of a lion; In the pale morning sky fading Orion. I see and I hear, I awake in the night. And the Asian forests are dark in my sight. With slow bright patches on the drifting gloom. Where Stars, Sun and Moon soundlessly bloom. The Sun hangs low, a great dim flower, A bloom without stalk; and hour by hour The sharp cries of birds and the shrieks of the slain Are tearing the quiet with bright gashes of pain: 20 THE APE And that Flower bleeds out, wildly staining the sky; And the lions roar to see the day-flower die — They roar together on the tops of the hills While with little pale blossoms the dark sky fills. In the gloom under heaven, clasping my knees — That long white shadow still falling through the trees, The lions roaring their music in my brain — Alone on that boulder I am sitting once again. 21 MAN WITH GIRL THE sun above the desert sands Burns a full orb of gold, Cold daylight falls upon our streets, Townsmen no Sun behold. Shy antelopes and tufted trees Move by eve's shining pools; White faces streaming in dark streets Our wind of sunset cools. The tall giraffe, the moon's bright horn. The shining waterfall I saw in the bright-limbed animal I danced with in the hall. 22 THE SEARCH FOR THE NIGHTINGALE [to S. S. in whose garden in KENT IN I9I9 I FIRST HEARD THE NIGHTINGALE] BE S I D E a stony, shallow stream I sat In a deep gully underneath a hill. 1 watched the water trickle down dark moss And shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair, And billow on the bodies of cold stone. And sculptured clear Upon the shoulder of that aerial peak Stood trees, the fragile skeletons of light. High in a bubble blown Of visionary stone. Under that azurine transparent arch The 'hills, the rocks, the trees Were still and dreamless as the printed wood Black on the snowy page. It was the song of some diviner bird Than this still country knew; Thewords were twigs of burnt and blackened trees From which there trilled a voice, Shadowy and faint, as though it were the song The water carolled as it flowed along. Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world, Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem, •And watched the parroquets green-feathered fly Through crystal vacancy, and perch in trees That glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream, 23 THE SEARCH FOR THE NIGHTINGALE And the voice faded, though the water dinned Against the stones its dimming memory. And I ached then To hear that song burst out upon that scene, Startling an earth where it had never been. And then I came unto an older world. The woods were damp, the sun Shone in a watery mist, and soon was gone; The trees were thick with leaves, heavy and old, The sky was grey, and blue, and like the sea Rolling with mists and shadowy veils of foam. I heard the roaring of an ancient wind Among the elms and in the tattered pines; And riding out into a pale lagoon I saw with gauzy sails a scudding Moon. *0 is it here,' I cried, 'that bird that sings So that the traveller in his frenzy weeps?' It was the autumn of the year, and leaves Fell with a dizzying moan, and all the trees Roared like the sea at my small impotent voice. And if that bird was there it did not sing; And I knew not its haunts, or where it went, But carven stood and raved! In that old wood that dripped upon my face Upturned below, pale in its passionate chase. And years went by, and 1 grew slowly cold: 1 had forgotten what I once had sought. 24 THE SEARCH FOR THE NIGHTINGALE There are no passions that do not grow dim. And like a fire imagination sinks Into the ashes of the mind's cold grate. And if I dreamed, I dreamed of that far land. That coast of pearl upon a summer sea, Whose frail trees in unruffled amber sleep. Gaudy with jewelled birds, whose feathers spray Bright founts of colour through the tranquil day. The hill, the gully and the stony stream 1 had not thought on when this spring I sat In a strange room with candles guttering down Into the flickering silence. From the Moon Among the trees still-wreathed upon the sky There came the sudden twittering of a ghost. And I stept out from darkness, and I saw The cold pale sky immense, transparent, filled With boughs and mountains andwide-shininglakes Where stillness, crying in a thin voice, breaks. It was the voice of that imagined bird. I saw the gully and that ancient hill. The water trickling down from Paradise Shaking the tiny boughs of maidenhair. There sat the dreaming boy. And O! I wept to see that scene again. To read the black print on that snowy page, I wept, and all was still. No shadow came into that sun-steeped glen, No sound of earth, no voice of living men. 25 THE SEARCH FOR THE NIGHTINGALE Was it a dream, or was it that in me A god awoke, and gazing on his dream Saw that dream rise and gaze into its soul, Finding, Narcissus-like, its image there: A Song, a transitory Shape on water blown. Descending down the bright cascades of Time, The shadowiest-flowering, ripple-woven bloom As ghostly as still waters' unseen foam That lies upon the air, as that song lay Within my heart on one far summer day? Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly, Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees. Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days, And music scrolls its lightning calm and bright On the pale sky where thunder cannot come. Into that world no ship has ever sailed. No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyes Has ever seen its shore whiten the waves. But to that land the Nightingale has flown. Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown. 26 STARS WH E N all the world stands heaped in sUent hills About the dying Sun, I hear the stars Start singing, as soldiers sing in far-off wars When each man's thought the distant homeland fills. I watch them trembling draw, as the nightingale trills. Out of their skyey country, and the gleam Of their strange gaze, bending o'er men that dream Knee-bent in sleep, shines in earth's myriad rills; These sing faint songs amongst the grass and fern Of some far land that has been lost to them, And under sombre boughs those Captives pale, Linkfed like jewels on Evening's ebon urn, The dark earth's quivering waters nightlong gem, Till from the world faint ghosts, at dawn, they sail. 37 TENT, MY DEAREST TENT MY S O U L is like a wandering Arab Who solitary brings His house among the desert stars On hiU or plain, by palm or brook And mid the loneliness of ways Thus to his comfort sings: Among the Universe's winds Tent, my dearest tent Thou dost house a quiet breath, A soft breath, a little breath — A leaf upon the tree Making a quiet lament. Leaf, thou art a rib ofwina That trembles through the sky Glimmering into a grosser dress A dress of flesh, a body — O Universal gale of life Thy fluttering tent am I. And, light of Moon and Sun, Thou, Foliage and Snows, Fading upon this star where I Were else dark,pitched in dark — Bright fabric of my walls. That in the darkness blows I 28 TENT, MY DEAREST TENT Amidst the wilderness of Space Thy glimmer may be spent But there are other lights that hum Mid other hills and other snows y And somewhere once more shall be pitched Tent, my dearest Tent! My soul is like a wandering Arab Who crossing hill and plain Under night's glittering suns shall place His tent of life, his fluttering sign ; And when Dawn rises on the world It shall have gone again. 29 MARRIAGE TH E S U N sank in the thunderous sky of the town, And I. rose in the glittering hall and strode through the people And went to my room, and laid me down with a Spirit — There was lightning out in the land beyond my window. Black was the night where lay that shining Spirit, That slim, white, glimmering body, my soul's companion ; And the trees and rocks and waters and hills around me Stood black and mournful in flashes about my bed. And the trees drooping around, and all the rocks and waters, The gloom-hung hills, the carven and frenzied silences Then worshipped that glimmering body, that white cascade That shone in my dark-hung cavern dug out of the sky. And 1 wondered how long ere the bolt should fall and destroy us. Ere we should go out like the spurt of a match in the darkness Having one glimpse of that wild and passionate country, Those woods and ravines dark-graven by summer light- ning; And I stared at the wall and the little distant window, The world shrivelled up to a low and far horizon. To a few bare hills in a sudden flash of lightning. And the glimmering Spirit I kissed in the gloom beside me. 30 w DEATH H E N I am dead, a few poor souls shall grieve As I have grieved for my brother long ago. Scarce did my eyes grow dim, I had forgotten him; I was far-ofFhearing the spring winds blow. And many summers burned When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame, I heard that faded name Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world From which, years gone, he turned. I looked up at my window and I saw The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon. The air was very still Above a distant hill; It was the hour of night's full silver noon. *0 art thou there, my brother?' my soul cried; And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept, As my heart sadly crept About the empty hills, bathed in that light That lapped him when he died. Ah, it was cold, so cold; do I not know How dead my heart on that remembered day! Clear in a far-away place I see his delicate face Just as he called me from my solitary play. Giving into my hand a tiny tree — 31 DEATH We planted it in the dark blossomless ground, Gravely without a sound; Then back I went, and left him standing by His birthday gift to me. In that far land perchance it quietly grows Drinking the rain, making a pleasant shade; Birds in its branches fly Out of the fathomless sky Where worlds of circling light arise and fade. Blindly it quivers in the bright flood of day, Or drowned in multitudinous sheets of rain Glooms o'er the dark-veiled plain — Buried below, the ghost that 's in his bones Dreams in the sodden clay. And while he faded, drunk with beauty's eyes, I kissed bright girls, and laughed deep in dumb trees That stared fixt in the air Like madmen in despair. Gaped up from earth with the escaping breeze. I saw earth's exaltation slowly creep Out of their myriad sky-embracing veins. I laughed along the lanes. Meeting Death riding in from hollow seas Through black-wreathed woods asleep. I laughed, I swaggered on the cold, hard ground — Through the grey air trembled a falling wave — 'Thou 'rt pale, O Death !' I cried. Mocking him in my pride; 32 DEATH And, passing, I dreamed not of that lonely grave, B ut of leaf-maidens whose pale, moon-like hands Above the tree-foam waved in the icy air. Sweeping with shining hair Through the green-tinted sky, one moment fled Out of immortal lands. O ne windless Autumn night the Moon came out In a still sea of cloud, a field of snow; In darkness shaped of trees I sank upon my knees. And watched her shining from the small wood below. Faintly Death flickered in an owl's far cry. We floated, soundless, in the great gulf of space, Her light upon my face — Immortal, shining, in that dark wood 1 knelt. And knew I could not die. And knew I could not die — O Death, didst thou Heed my vain glory, standing pale by thy dead? There is a spirit who grieves Amid earth's dying leaves; Was 't thou that wept beside my brother's bed ? For I did never mourn nor heed at all Him passing on his temporal elmwood bier; I never shed a tear : The drooping sky spread grey-winged through my soul While stones and earth did fall. 33 DEATH That sound rings down the years — I hear it yet — All earthly life's a winding funeral, — And though I never wept, But into the dark coach stept. Dreaming by night to answer the blood's sweet call. She who stood there high-breasted, with small, wise lips, And gave me wine to drink and bread to eat. Has not more steadfast feet. But fades from my arms as fade from mariners' eyes The sea's most beauteous ships. The trees and hills of earth were once as close As my own brother: they are becoming dreams And shadows in my eyes; More dimly lies Guaya deep in my soul; the coast line gleams Faintly along the darkling crystalline seas : Glimmering and lovely still, 'twill one day go; The surging dark will flow Over my hopes and joys, and blot out all Earth's hills and skies and trees. I shall look up one night and see the Moon For the last time shining above the hills. And thou, silent, wilt ride Over the dark hillside. 'TwiU be perchance the time of daiFodils— *How come those bright immortals in the woods? 'Their joy being young, didst thou not drag them all Into dark graves ere Fall? ' 34 DEATH Shall Life flash leaping at me as I go To thy deep solitudes! There is a figure with a down-turned torch Carved on a pillar in an olden time, A calm and lovely boy Who comes not to destroy, But to lead age back to its golden prime. Thus did an antique sculptor draw thee, Death, With smooth and beauteous brow, and faint sweet smile Not haggard, gaunt and vile; And thou perhaps art thus, to whom men may, Unvexed, give up their breath. But in my soul thou sittest like a Dream Among earth's mountains by her dim-coloured seas, A wild unearthly Shape In thy dark-glimmering cape Piping a tune of wavering melodies. Thou sittest, ay, thou sittest at the feast Of my brief life, among earth's bright-wreathed flowers Staining the dancing hours With sombre gleams, until, abrupt, thou risest. And all, at once, is ceased. 35 LOVERS ACROSS THE SEA DE S O L ATE of all young lovers sleeps the land, And there is silence in earth's woods and halls. The bugle of war faintly in dreamland calls, And maidens into the moonlight wave a hand From high rooms gazing where their lovers stand In the far South. The garden's budding pinks Sway softly in their souls, swift downward sinks Their fragrant clothing, their limbs by soft airs fanned Pale, foam-like, gleam upon the summer wind; Their bright hair in the moonlight glimmering spray, As warrior after warrior sinks to die. The red blood billowing from the darkening mind. And in the night's faint-starred and tranquil sky The same white Moon suddenly black mid-way. 36 MAIDENS THERE is ahunger in their small white limbs, It is the beauty of the world they seek; They shall have children gazing on great stars That melt within their bodies. They shall speak Of rivers, woods and oceans of the world, Babbling soft words of love on that man's lips Who from their nakedness all safety strips. Naked, defenceless in a wild ravening world. Clamouring to rape their beauty ere they die. They clasp frail hands, fashioned so delicately That men go mad to see bared beauty lie On the dark cloths of earth like trees and streams That are a dark, bright budding ecstasy. Souls in the calm deep air upleaping free. And I have fled from them by night and day, From dark trees bending high against the Moon, From streams that shone like spirits seeking flesh To clothe their bright desires. At summer's noon Bewitched by spirit-babblings I have stolen To watch one leap among the ferns and grass, A naked soul, shining and clear as glass. And these white nymphs of human progeny Ache for the darkness soft against their flesh; Their pale limbs in their secret chambers gleam And make with stars and streams a glimmering mesh Of bright enchantment. Slowly sinks the world 37 MAIDENS Beneath the spell of beauty; naked lies Earth's tortured spirit spread against the skies. All grief and joy and fear of bright-edged swords And fountains of red blood among quiet stars Leap in their flesh, as in snow countries fires Glimmer among pale hills ; the trees' dark bars Stark black with death fret the ethereal flame Dug from the bowels of earth. The dusty lanes Ache for the kiss of gentle-greeting rains. Soft as rain falling should their lovers come And touch their hands and gaze into their eyes That will not see the Moon stand round and still, Nor the white Owl motionless as it flies ; For this is love, a hollow, shining dream Of crystal trees, and faces cold and small That do not sigh, or kiss, or speak at all. 38 A^ LOVE R E the pale bodies of these maidens LWisps of the smoke of life Burning in my brain, Blown across the green fields of Spring From the smouldering fires of Winter? For I am a heap of dead generations Smouldering in the sun. I am pale as a candle-flame in the sunlight, My body is as white as wax. I am dim as a wave falling from a clifFof light, A soundless invisible flame. And those wisps of smoke wandering in the daylight Are the bodies of slender girls, Incense of earth's imagination. It is blown among the walls of cities, , It floats curled along the streets As though where earth touched invisible clouds On theclearpavements their brightskirtsfluttered, A snowy border of the clear day; The earth dark as a still wood garden About the feet of February snowdrops. Desire darkens like a trellis abandoned by the rose; A winter sun is shining; The passing clouds trail their cold shadows Drooping a festoon of ghostly blooms. 39 LOVE Where is the rose that is vanished? Neither morning nor yet the evening Looks upon her face. I lie at the foot of the trellis, Earth smouldering slowly in the sun. Behold the framework of dead imagination And a thin faint haze in the landscape, Life, smoking subtly in the brain! Black and myriad the dead sticks of desire. And the Void bloomless upon the trellis! Out of the darkness, under the mantling sky. Dawn has brought forth a pale clump of blossom. Through all outspread imagination A slender fire is creeping. Green fires trailing on the cold black sky. White maidens of earth leap dancing. For the Rose has come again upon the trellis. 40 MOON-MUSIC MARVELLOUSLY bright the bosom of the maiden Wading across the world's dark river; Insects over dew-pools wave their antennae Slowly in the starlight. Cascading quiver The Moon's thin waterfalls, the voices of the nightingales In a cold Moon landscape hung above the forests. Whither is she going, the bright Moon-maiden? O 'er her river-girdled body the stars are dark. Hears she the music from tiny throats crying. Drawn like herself in earth's ghostly barque; Drawn through the Universe, silently spinning. Maiden and river, and the Moon's waterfalls.? The Moon draws the voices, the shadows of the waters. To the tops of the forests revolving 'mid the stars. Spinning so fast that all again is solid. The tree-trunks standing earth's cold iron bars. Standing still in the Moon, in the trembling voices — The nightingales, the waterfalls, the Maid river-girdled. The Maiden in the river has stopped singing. Lifting her arms in the middle of the stream ! Cold is its scenery, cold the trajectory Of bright-haired comets in the Maid's wheeled dream. And the insects' antennae and the voices of the nightingales Thinly in the starlight wave upon the water. 41 MOON-MUSIC Clouds faint and shadowy pass across the river. The Maiden has vanished, the nightingales are still; The brightness that girdled her has faded from the water, The trees' black ecstasy is blotted from each hill; In the Moon's mountains the waterfalls are darkened, Wrapped in grey vapour the earth rushes onward. 42 EARTH AT NIGHT THROUGH pale bright seas the dark hull earth Floats with her outlined hills, , The Moon a blossom on her spars, The Clouds her billowing sails. What crystal Wind rolls her along. What chains that silver bloom Above her mountain masts so high Where blows no storm or calm? Dark hull and silver lamp move not, Rocks cut in that still wind; Moon-blossom, and Shadow setwith gems To us who stand between. A wind, unglittering, holds the stars In music cold and keen, Revolving spheres around us wheel, Locked in a crystal scene. 43 LIGHT AND DARKNESS IN starlight and in dewlight I stood still Below earth's window where She drew her garments ofF. Lightly they fell Without a sound, soft clouds around her feet, Until she stood quite bare, Still as the Moon without ; and the quick air Eddied about. Silent she stood in that soft robe of blue. Blushing that Night and all the stars should gaze Upon her naked and unfenced from life. She shivered with delight that myriad eyes Of worm and beetle, bird and woodland beast In lust pursue Her beauty in a multiform disguise. Praying that they Might keep their power and flash their secret light Into the dark recesses of the earth, She felt the bright Rays of the stars invade her virgin brain. And her limbs with the falling leaves decay In silence dyed. Pale in the stain Of starlight steeping steadily each leaf and bloom, The garden drifted through transparent time. Still she stood there, 44 LIGHT AND DARKNESS A marble cloud among the clouds of light, Bright from that blossom on earth's outlined hills, the moon ^ Till, watching from below, I saw her wane, Snow in dark sudden rain. The garden was stark blotted out from sight, The darkness dropping down Destroyed that cold clear world, but soon I heard, Above me hugely hung, A solitary tree gulping the steady rain — As though a Giant dark-handed had come in. And closed up Heaven's light. 45 w MULTITUDES HERE there are many multitudes in the darkness of the city That has stamped out the daisies' light, There is no joy on the faces of the houses, No flowers or plumage bright. But a drab multitude of dun-hued sparrows Hopping mid the People who pass — Their shadows flickering on the narrow paths, Shadows of the city's grass. In the sunshine heavy, intense, and dark. Faint, unterrene in the night, Under the fields of treeless stars, In the thin sifting rain of light, Where clouds, reclining, with great carved limbs, Above the city gaze^ Vast, stone-hewed Gods that fled to the sky. Held fast in night's cold blaze. The heads of the old in the street-aisled town. Are images chipped and blurred. The tide that flowed through their hardening limbs Now is shrunken and sleeps unstirred. Leaving a shadow on memory's walls — Imagination's haunting stain, Where the tiny billow of vanishing life Leaps up and leaps in vain. 46 MULTITUDES Multitudes of tulips in boxes standing, Glazed and smooth and bright; Multitudes of windows framed and shining, In the sun's warm, western light; Multitudes of voices softlier falling On the pavements and the walls — The lonely star-serenading winds Without the city's halls. 47 SORROWING FOR CHILDHOOD DEPARTED WH O is there among us who has found the key Of the treasure that is locked in the hearts of men ? Only the poet lonely in his chamber Or the man remembering his childhood again. Hearing gay voices, my heart is hollow, An empty room with bright colours on the walls; The speech of my brother is no more than a traffic That remote and coldly on my dull brain falls. I am deaf to the song in the speech of my fellows, I have outwitted my childhood's desires; And where have I travelled that to the far horizon Dead in the landscape are earth's bright fires .'' Didst thou ever murder, Macbeth, thy sorrow. Didst thou ever murder thy soul's young joy, Thou hadst never flinched from the life of another, Thou hadst but with laughter stol'n from him a toy! Would that a Spirit had stolen from me The glittering baubles of my cunning mind, Andleft me the sweet forest of my wondering childhood, Its transparent water in tall trees enshrined. Then was I happy. Love was my companion ; I was in communion with star and stream ; With bird and with flower I was linked in rapture. We stared at each other — the valley's dream. 48 SORROWING FOR CHILDHOOD DEPARTED Out of the mountains we were carven, Birds and flowers, stream, rock and child — O but I belong there ! I am torn from my body. In that far-away forest it lies exiled! There falls the water transparently shining, Hangs there a flower that blooms in my eyes. Long have I been ready! let me go thither, And unloosen my limbs to those dream-coloured skies. O that it were possible! but that land has vanished; The magic of that valley has crumbled away; Bright crowds are there only, the mind's cold idola; And my footprints on the dead ground startle the day. 49 A LOVE-SONG TH E beautifvil, delicate bright gazelle That bounds upon Night's hills Has not more lovely, silken limbs Than she who my heart fills. But though this loveliness 1 lose When I shall lie with her, I do but pass that Image on For new eyes to discover. SO THE DANCERJ TH E young girl dancing lifts her face Passive among the drooping flowers; The jazz band clatters sticks and bones In a bright rhythm through the hours. The men in black conduct her round ; With small sensations they are blind : Thus Saturn's Moons revolve embraced And through the cosmos wind. But Saturn has not that strange look Unhappy, still, and far away, As though upon the face of Night Lay the bright wreck of day. 51 MAROONED CLOUD-SHIPS drifting near me pass Dragging ghost-anchors on the grass, Laden with snow and ice and gold, Their crews, abstractions faint and old, Postured against the violet air In act of drinking or of song, I saw, lying upon a hill In Summer's bowl clear, huge and still. Deep-drowned, knee-bent 1 lie and gaze On keels that shade celestial bays : No bronze-cut waves, no rippling swell Stirs where the crews' carved faces dwell. Upon some siren-land of song Their eyes as sightless statues stare All treasury of mortal care Abandoned as they sail along. When day sank in the Western sky No breast among them heaved a sigh; But as I looked I saw a glaze Of gold upon their raptured gaze; And all those billowing sails of snow In stillness carved no longer blow Each stifFship motionless as its crew. 52 MAROONED All marble and becalmed they lay Gigantic in the gulf of day. Then out of space a chill wind flew And in the sky cold empty air Startled my strained eyes everywhere. Those ships and mariners had gone. Stunned like a bright-fleshed Angel thrown, On the dark earth I sprawled alone. 53 DYING GENERATIONS I LISTEN to the surfing tide Escaping through a thousand stones; The still dim stars its pallor hide In their pale hands, sitting beside The thin fire of the tide. They sit in the dark sky for ever, Holding to earth's hearth-flowering tide The palms of their pale hands; A frail, reflected eventide Sparkles and dwindles in the sands. A myriad Buddhas in the sky At prayer with pale, uplifted hands When the Sun died: The crying, myriad-peopled sands Quiver and vanish in the tide. ^4 BUPHAGA I DREAMED that I was walking down the streets Of an old town. Softly as blood beats, Along curved secret ways my footsteps went. The day was still but clear, and green trees bent Over the walls, their shadows drawn on stone With that ethereal softness sometimes blown By faint pure winds on water. Countries snow-stilled, Heaped in the sky that same soft brightness filled Where high carved peaks bloomed in stifFclouds of light. Beyond the roofs bright-ranged they filled my sight. In street-pools lay Pale wind-flowers, china-blue, bits of the day That shone above, solid and clear and deep. 'Twas but an hour from dawn, and fresh from sleep The very stones gazed with dream-seeing eyes Upon me as I passed. The houses all Were shuttered still, although I caught the fall Of voices in a garden — they are, thought I, Two girls beneath a bough who to the sky Swing in dawn's dreamfulness deliciously, Putting dark feet against the ivory Of heaven above the tree-tops. Softly I sang Bright dreamy songs that clear and silvery rang Patterned upon the calm like fretted stains On chalcedony, or the faint branching veins Of trees in smooth steel water. But my heart Was flowering in a desert. At the song's start SS BUPHAGA Those other voices stilled, a hush came down That filled the street like snow. The little town Seemed like a star that's fallen on a hill Solid but noiseless. Not a murmuring tree Rustled its leaves. And so, fantastically, I hurried under jutting roofs; and no Wind came, my garments to out-blow. At the town's edge, Its stones uprising from a slow river's sedge, A massive building lay, its garden space High-walled, not to be spied upon by any face That wandered underneath the Moon or Sun. And there I heard a sweet- voiced tale begun; Locked out I lay upon the grass and heard A low, clear-tinkling voice like a caged bird That with bright magic garlanded the air, And though when it began the scene was fair That my eyes held imagined, yet it grew Ever more dark, and other voices drew About it, voices emptier, and cold. Until as on earth's hills a disc of gold Enters, came warmth unimaged, and I lay. With cold fear in my heart. Yet the bright day Was tranquil, and no cloud by me was seen Hung in the sky to dim the meadow's green. THE voice: In the blue sky the sun 's a fount of gold Bubbling invisibly into the air; The sightless stones are wonderfully bright-eyed; 56 BUPHAGA The trees are fragments earth-torn from night's dreams, Sprinkled with crystal rain that fell from stars Jarred in their circumambulatory trance In the dark airy halls beyond this world. Much brighter sings the river than at noon, For then its shrill and silver babbling falls Into the mellow mournfulness of age, And all its shining coils are filmed and dim, Its flashing body duUed, and heavily lying Upon its bed by banks of withered grass. Small bell-mouthed trumpets blown by hidden lips Below the soil, now break upon the air In carven tones, purer than scrolls of wax Or linen hoods of nuns in chapel vaults; The grass is white, milk-white our ancient walls ; The pure soft morning's like a pearl fished up Out of a sea at sunrise, with the Moon A heavenly sloop, low in the light-washed sky. The drifting fishers by the pearl-grey shore. Cast up from space by the transparent calm. Emerge with dripping masts; The Moon has sailed, they push their oars and glide Into the pale gold Eastern mists, and find The dawn's great Topaz on the water's rim, And when they see it, gaily rise and sing! SECOND voice: At dawn I feel there is a bell in space, That with a quivering tongue tolls music forth 57 BUPHAGA From its high tower on seas of glimmering pearl, Greeting the cold blush of the morning sky With a cold azure clangour of delight! THE voice: The trees that drip are prisoners of the earth, And can but lift their branches to the sky. They stand like fountains chained by winter frosts Breathing a cold bright glory, frail as smoke Or breath of cattle on the dewy grass. But we are ir&Q^free, yet we wither here In these black gowns, as dead as trees in winter Fenced in white walls of everlasting peace! SECOND voice: I found a toad one day beneath a stone. And he was golden-mottled, velvet-dark. With a great emerald eye. 1 shrieked with fear. And ran back with delight, he was so lovely. At last, trembling, I stooped to touch his side : Ugh! he was cold! I never shall forget The shock it was to find a thing so bright Colder than my cell's walls. Next day he'd gone. I should have placed him in a little box, And kept him just to gaze on. . . the voice: The sunset 's gold, and that is all we see Of the great glory there must be in life. Here in this garden we can watch it dip Beyond those western mountains whose high peaks Are more remote than any hills of dream. 58 BUPHAGA For in the dead of night, and fast asleep, There are no boundaries to my travelling soul. No vale or hillside but I wander there. And pluck its flowers, and wave delighted hands Above its tranquil streams, and those white fans Startle gold shadows in the crystal waters, Faint undulations in the rippling tide Of that frail blushing glory on the hills That creeps at evening from the fading sky, And steals down all the rivers. Softly it sings In many a dark wood carolling on a bough, A tiny ghost of that departed sun. And such a ghost I heard, once wandering;here — Out of my bed arisen an hour ere dawn — Stealing between the shadow-shapes of trees. So still it was I scarcely dared to breathe. It seemed to me that life lay all around Loud crying from a million million throats. Though 'twas so silent, I could almost hear The star fires crackling in the dark of heaven. Then suddenly I heard a voice that came — Thinner than crying drakes that die at dusk — Up from the stone beneath my feet, and I Heard without hearing, in tranquillity Deeper than evening's calm, this lonely song : Weary I wait until the rising Sun Shall reach me where I lie. And then shall I 59 BUPHAGA Burn with sharp sweetness the pale-scented grass; And marigolds upright Shall droop their proud fair heads, until I see Their faces bright Clouded with that slow-passing panoply Of great star-dimming light. But naked, I, unblinking, shall gaze back, And dumbly shout, unheard, As loud as dark-groved bird Whom, wood-entombfed. Dawn's pale splinter finds. And on night's brink — When icy winds do weep, and hidden in leaves Silent they shrink — I shall cry out once more to ghostly stars. And pale dews drink. The silence never trembled. I stood still Down in the garden, motionless as stone. My face upturned to stars, my lips half-open As if that song had passed out with my breath. And was my spirit leaving my cold body. Sighed up from earth and under star-blue skies A moon-lit wave of lava, petrified. SECOND voice: I do not know, what other life you seek. In this quiet garden all is beautiful. And 1 am glad to be safe harboured here. For there's a hidden cruelty in the sky. . . 60 BUPHAGA THE voice: I have no fear of cruelty : I would live, And see my blood phantasy my white hands, And stain my linen with dark, silent shrieks, Rather than sit immaculate and sing — A frosty angel cloud-carved from the sky — Calm, stainless songs of snow in heavenly streets^ Archangels blowing clarion harmony With faces like those marble cherubs who Gaze from the corners of our father's tomb. SECOND voice: There is a pale rapt beauty on their brows That I do long for. Jesu, give me peace To dig such holiness from my weak flesh As looking on Thou shalt incline Thy Face — Howe'er so far away — with loveliness Benign and calm. Thou shining on my soul As the Moon shines on the pale pools of earth! THE voice: The dreams of virgins are both ice and fire. It may be that these starry frosts of thine — Like those at morning found upon the trees When a night's snow has stolen away the wind And left a sepulchre of shining boughs — Do pierce the soul with brighter agony, And light more sparkling tracks within the mind Than mid-day suns that beat upon the heart, And bleed in wild cloud-jungles of the sky, Dissolving dawn's white wraiths to woods of gloom 61 BUPHAGA Where hidden waters curve upon the boughs In great green billows, and on crowded stems The earth's sun-seeking myriads twist their souls; Frail angels from the moss they sing to God, Lifting a weight of prayer towards the sky To burst into a sudden clap of bloom, Hanging faint heads after wild-coloured cries; While round about prowl darker things than these. Who also praise God ravening through the world. In green foam and in silver streams The nightingales now sing, And many souls are wandering by The frail, white boughs of spring Who from my dreaming thrust a hand Under cold, milk-pale skies To catch the shining song they hear Ere in dream-dark it dies. In dream-dark die earth's jaguars. Eagles and spotted deer; The crested birds who from great flowers Upon the silence peer: The blossoms of a far-oflF world In the night sky gather; They shall all walk down with me In the dark earth together, SECOND voice: The songs you sing, Moryrria, fill my mind With meaning strange as music that disturbs The soul desiring peace and to know God. 62 BUPHAGA moryrria: Wilt thou know God, seated upon a stone. Thy face bent o'er a lily? In what book Hath God appeared Who made the green-eyed toad That sits in meadows (while the flock of stars Creeps from the sky) as thou sittest at thy window — His eyes the same great field of far-ofF fires Which pale and redden in the invisible wind ? From what deep pool of mud did he creep up Out of the bowels of earth to see the sky, To gaze as thou dost gaze ? It is the earth itself That from deep concentration lifts its soul. And from that meadow and your window looks. And there is something that looks up in me, But cannot find what it would gaze upon. SECOND voice: You frighten me, Moryrria . . . moryrria: Open your white-paged book in the green woods. Your calm face will bring peace to the green boughs, Who'll flutter round that bright tranquillity That comes among them, whence they cannot know. Nor do I know what brought you, sister, here. Into this world of turbulence and lust, A white cascade among wild rocks and trees. SECOND voice: The Reverend Mother comes-but, look! Moryrria! I thought I saw the Sun shout, huge and gold. Among the pigmy stars: Behold, Buphaga! 63 BUPHAGA prioress: This creature, daughter, has been sent to thee From thy lost brother, who in heathen lands Fought for the souls of men mid things like these. But I do fear — for it is marvellous gold, And hues of sunset sparkle on its body — Now that thou hast this morsel of the Sun, It shall entice thy mind to earthly lusts. Strange fornications of thy maiden spirit That is so apt to crucify the flesh In wild embracing of the cold night stars. I fear a fire will eat into this garden That has been lit by the pale purified Orb Amid our northern mountains. And the Moon, That Christlike treads our calm, seraphic hills. Will no more hang upon our garden harps Bright harmony of still, transparent sound — - As though the angels carved on Heaven's walls In contemplation had down-dropped their gaze To this dark earth . . . moryrria: Art thou my brother's soul, or art thou Life That I have waited for these empty years ? Out of the black abysses of dead Time Thou art come hither, barred with the golden Sun, Voiced with a million, million forest leaves Shadow-like falling through the dateless past Where great mossed trunks fade like the wings of evening, 64 BUPHAGA Passing at twilight into eternity. Male moths like devil's faces fluttering come Floating from hell, making no sound at all Mid silent-shrieking flowers dragged offhy night Suddenly from all fearful-gazing eyes. I hear the jubilation of cold streams When the gold ghosts of tigers, walking, pale. With heads uplifted gaze on their embryo stars — Those milky beasts that haunt the desert skies, And then descend to drink the evening water In wandering streams . . . That voice went l^ing on. As falls the sea's voice from the traveller, gone Some miles inland, who sees the motionless hills And clouds hung silent in the sky. Sound fills The still wide valley with no audible cry From bright waves painted cold in memory. I gazed in dream upon the swelling ground That undulated softly to the sea. Against those dark walls foaming noiselessly. And there was not a sound in earth or sky: No bird rose up out of the trees to fly, DwincUing through space upon a noiseless wing And In departing hope of renewal bring. But all around seemed a stifl^painted scene, Air-ambered butterflies hung 'twixt bushes green, Insects' antennae moved not, nor their great eyes In grass as still as the bright fadeless skies. F 6$ BUPHAGA Birds stood on rocks, fish gazed from wavie-still coigns — Earth on itself protruding from its own loins. But Earth was not, for Earth had entered in That secret spiritual garden. The awful din Of astronomic emptiness swung round My naked soul. But not a tangible sound Flew to the drums of my corporeal ear Bent, listening. . . . And I looked up and found that it was even. Pale stars were clustered dimly in the heaven. I heard no voices, walking to the sea Quivering upon earth's coast, soundlessly. And in a boat I stole, without wind, away From the dead shore where that great Convent lay. 66 PRINTED AT THE SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS STRATFORD-U PON-AVON li&iiiiiMiiiH