The Poetical Works Of Robert Bridges Part 60

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PATER FILIO

Sense with keenest edge unused, Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire; Lovely feet as yet unbruised On the ways of dark desire; Sweetest hope that lookest smiling O'er the wilderness defiling!

Why such beauty, to be blighted By the swarm of foul destruction?

Why such innocence delighted, When sin stalks to thy seduction?

All the litanies e'er chaunted Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

I have pray'd the sainted Morning To unclasp her hands to hold thee; From resignful Eve's adorning Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee; With all charms of man's contriving Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.

Me too once unthinking Nature, --Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,-- Fas.h.i.+on'd so divine a creature, Yea, and like a beast forsook me.

I forgave, but tell the measure Of her crime in thee, my treasure.

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NOVEMBER

The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed; The short days pa.s.s unwelcomed one by one.

Out by the ricks the mantled engine stands Crestfallen, deserted,--for now all hands Are told to the plough,--and ere it is dawn appear The teams following and crossing far and near, As hour by hour they broaden the brown bands Of the striped fields; and behind them firk and prance The heavy rooks, and daws grey-pated dance: As awhile, surmounting a crest, in sharp outline (A miniature of toil, a gem's design,) They are pictured, horses and men, or now near by Above the lane they shout lifting the share, By the trim hedgerow bloom'd with purple air; Where, under the thorns, dead leaves in huddle lie Packed by the gales of Autumn, and in and out The small wrens glide With a happy note of cheer, And yellow amorets flutter above and about, Gay, familiar in fear.

And now, if the night shall be cold, across the sky Linnets and twites, in small flocks helter-skelter, All the afternoon to the gardens fly, From thistle-pastures hurrying to gain the shelter Of American rhododendron or cherry-laurel: And here and there, near chilly setting of sun, In an isolated tree a congregation Of starlings chatter and chide, Thickset as summer leaves, in garrulous quarrel: Suddenly they hush as one,-- The tree top springs,-- And off, with a whirr of wings, They fly by the score To the holly-thicket, and there with myriads more Dispute for the roosts; and from the unseen nation A babel of tongues, like running water unceasing, Makes live the wood, the flocking cries increasing, Wrangling discordantly, incessantly, While falls the night on them self-occupied; The long dark night, that lengthens slow, Deepening with Winter to starve gra.s.s and tree, And soon to bury in snow The Earth, that, sleeping 'neath her frozen stole, Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless pole Of how her end shall be.

15

WINTER NIGHTFALL

The day begins to droop,-- Its course is done: But nothing tells the place Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens, And up the lane You may hear, but cannot see, The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums In the farm hard by: Its lowering smoke is lost In the lowering sky.

The soaking branches drip, And all night through The dropping will not cease In the avenue.

A tall man there in the house Must keep his chair: He knows he will never again Breathe the spring air:

His heart is worn with work; He is giddy and sick If he rise to go as far As the nearest rick:

He thinks of his morn of life, His hale, strong years; And braves as he may the night Of darkness and tears.

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Since we loved,--(the earth that shook As we kissed, fresh beauty took)-- Love hath been as poets paint, Life as heaven is to a saint;

All my joys my hope excel, All my work hath prosper'd well, All my songs have happy been, O my love, my life, my queen.

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When Death to either shall come,-- I pray it be first to me,-- Be happy as ever at home, If so, as I wish, it be.

Possess thy heart, my own; And sing to the child on thy knee, Or read to thyself alone The songs that I made for thee.

18

WISHES

I wish'd to sing thy grace, but nought Found upon earth that could compare: Some day, maybe, in heaven, I thought,-- If I should win the welcome there,--

There might I make thee many a song: But now it is enough to say I ne'er have done our life the wrong Of wis.h.i.+ng for a happier day.

19

A LOVE LYRIC

Why art thou sad, my dearest?

What terror is it thou fearest, Braver who art than I The fiend to defy?

Why art thou sad, my dearest?

And why in tears appearest, Closer than I that wert At hiding thy hurt?

Why art thou sad, my dearest, Since now my voice thou hearest?

Who with a kiss restore Thy valour of yore.

20

??OS

Why hast thou nothing in thy face?

Thou idol of the human race, Thou tyrant of the human heart, The flower of lovely youth that art; Yea, and that standest in thy youth An image of eternal Truth, With thy exuberant flesh so fair, That only Pheidias might compare, Ere from his chaste marmoreal form Time had decayed the colours warm; Like to his G.o.ds in thy proud dress, Thy starry sheen of nakedness.

Surely thy body is thy mind, For in thy face is nought to find, Only thy soft unchristen'd smile, That shadows neither love nor guile, But shameless will and power immense, In secret sensuous innocence.

O king of joy, what is thy thought?

I dream thou knowest it is nought, And wouldst in darkness come, but thou Makest the light where'er thou go.

Ah yet no victim of thy grace, None who e'er long'd for thy embrace, Hath cared to look upon thy face.

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THE FAIR BRa.s.s