least violet.
The fragile fabric of dissolved night
Seemed in the air. A million little minds
Kept concert in the very realm of sight.
O—and suddenly as sunlight finds
White towers I heard the ancient wood unfold
Its ancient secret piped by little winds.
“Behold the beauty in me. O behold
The beauty that makes utter peace, in me;
Beauty that is immeasurably old.”
The whole world like a bell heard echoingly.
Words wonderful! I found a fairy bed
And saw that which the wildwood let me see.
(O Little Wind that brought me what it said!)
III: Night Is Here
Night is here and star-rise
And demeanour of the dark.
Visioned by my closed eyes
Now I lie within an arc.
Lyric loom,
All the silence is a-hark
For a poppy bud to bloom
In some flowery harmony
Woven through this quiet room.
Prick of light and shadow take me,
Fire and stars and voices keep,
Fairy clamour will not wake me …
… Sleep.
But that warm grave of sleep
Nothing save myself immures.
Singing light and dreaming deep
Now my spirit walks with yours.
BALLADES OF THREE SENSES
I
BALLADE OF EYES THAT SEE
Leaves loosened when there blow
No winds; long fields whose green
Dim beneath the darling bow
Of the May-moon is seen;
Robins at dawn; the keen
Sour odour of vines—these show
Frail meanings caught between
The bourne of yes and no.
Yet there is tender art
To fathom what they mean,
Deep in the heart.
I go among them. Now I lean
Where willows fret the flow
Of water that has been
For miles to glean.
And in the osiers—O
An ouphe, an elfin queen.
I did not see her—lo,
The osiers did not part,
Yet she was there I ween,
Deep in the heart.
Envoy
Spells, lay upon the screen
The things that move me so.
I ask the better part:
To see with eyes serene
What things these others know——
Deep in the heart.
II
BALLADE OF LISTENING
On summer slopes lit white
With old desire of day,
The air with pearl bedight
Prepares for gold array.
The sun-drugged stars delay
To die; the winds take fright
And question, and betray
Frail sounds for my delight.
O voice of ancient springs!
O little echo-flight!
O harp of things!
In grasses that lie bright,
In grasses that lie grey,
Up on the clouded height
Down in the zone of May
Are printless feet astray.
Airy the hands that smite
The lyre in nameless lay;
And the great gods invite
Echo of earth chantings
On quiet wing away.
O—harp of things!
Envoy
Harp, is it this that you say?
“Delicate is my might,
Quickening the voice that sings;
For I am sense grown fey.
I am word of the morn and the night.”
O harp of things!
III
BALLADE OF OLD PERFUMES
Now out of dream old springs
Flow soft with many red
And golden fluttering things.
Sweetly from underhead
All the wan air is fed
With faint rememberings
Of hours long buried.
Rose-rumours steal and stir;
They come on wind-like wings.
The old odours that were
Nard and mint and myrrh.
I think that as there clings
Colour to blossoms shed,
So love and all that sings,
So hearts that beat and bled
Were with old fragrance wed.
Now when the garden flings
On many a secret thread
Sweets to the wanderer,
Some buried witch-bell rings
The old odours that were
Nard and mint and myrrh.
Envoy
Spring, let me lay my head
Where the wild season sings
Some dead girl’s heart from her.
O young heart, ages dead,
Old odours thrill mute strings.
The old odours that were
Nard and mint and myrrh.
HOKKU
The way that shadow fell along the floor!
I too have waited for a shadow.
Hokku