Preludes 1921-1922 Part 4

O Love, on many an evening hill I watched the day go down, the still Dark woods, the far great rivers wind, Thin threads of light. And I was blind, Or seeing knew not, for you were Beside me still, yet hidden there.

O Love, as year by year went on, And budding primroses were gone, And berries fell, and still the bright Crocuses came in the night, You left me to my task alone, O Love, so near me and unknown.

O Love, though she who bore me set Earth's love for ever on me, yet Some word withheld still troubled me, Some presence that I could not see, Till you, dear alien, should come, And doctrine be no longer dumb.

O Love, one April night I heard The doctrine's everlasting word, And you beneath that starry sky, Unknown, were with me suddenly, Yet there was no new meeting then, But some old marriage come again.

O Love, and now is earth my friend, Telling me all, until the end When I shall in the earth be laid With all my maps and fancies made, And you, Love, were the secret earth Of my blind following from birth.

O Love, you happy wayfarer, Be still my fond interpreter, Of all the glory that can be As once on starlit Winchelsea, Finding upon my pilgrim way A burning bush for every day.

TO MY SON

(AGED SIXTEEN)

Dear boy unborn: the son but of my dream, Promise of yet unrisen day, Come, sit beside me; let us talk, and seem To take such cares and courage for your way, As some year yet we may.

As some year yet, when you, my son to be, Look out on life, and turn to go, And I, grown grey, shall wish you well, and see Myself imprinted as but she could know To make amendment so.

I see you then, your sixteen years alight With limbs all true and golden hair, And you, unborn, I will, this April night, Tell of the faith and honour you must wear For love, whose light you bear.

Beauty you have; as, mothered so, could face Or limbs or hair be otherwise?

Years gone, dear boy, there was a virgin grace Worth Homer's laurel under western skies To wander and devise.

Beauty you have. Cherish it as divine, Wash it with dews of diligence, Not vainly, but because it is the sign Of inward light, the spirit's excellence Made visible to sense.

Athlete be you; strong runner to the goal, Glad though the game be lost or won: Fleet limbs that chronicle a fleeter soul, In every winter valiantly to run, Till the last race be done.

Love wisdom that is suited in a rhyme, And be in all your learning known Old minstrels chanting out of faded time, Since he who counts all years gone by alone Makes any year his own.

And when one day you are a lover too, Come back to her who bore you, dear, Tell out your tale; you shall the better woo For every word that from her lips you hear, For she made love most clear.

Most clear for him who sits beside you now; There was a certain frost that fell Before its time upon a summer bough,-- And how at last that reckoning was well, She for your love shall tell.

Labour to build your house, but ever keep That greater garden fresh in mind, That England with its bird-song buried deep In cool great woods where chivalry can find The province of its kind.

Be great or little your inheritance, Know there shall number in that dower No treasure from the treasuries of chance So rare as that you came the perfect flower Of love's most perfect hour.

Go now, my son. Be all I might have been.

(Ask her. She knows, and none but she.) Her beauty and her wisdom weathered clean Some part of me in you, that you might be Her own eternity.

INTERLUDE

What love is; how I love; how builders' clay By love is lit into a golden spending; How love calls beautiful ghosts back to the day; How life because of love shall have no ending-- These with the dawn I have begun to sing, These with the million-budded noon that's rising Shall be a theme, with love's consent, to bring My song to some imperishable devising.

And may the petals of this garland fall On every quarrel, and in fragrance bless Old friends.h.i.+p; and a little comfort all The weary loves that walk the wilderness, While still my song I consecrate alone To her who taking it shall take her own.