Personae Part 5

And he may sink unto strange depths, he tells me of, That have no light as we it deem.

E'en now he speaks strange words. I did not know One half the substance of his speech with me.

And then when I saw naught he sudden leaped And shot, a gleam of silver, down, away.

And I have spent three days upon this rock And yet he comes no more.

He did not even seem to know I watched him gliding through the vitreous deep.

II

They chide me that the skein I used to spin Holds not my interest now, They mock me at the route, well, I have come again.

Last night I saw three white forms move Out past the utmost wave that bears the white foam crest.

I somehow knew that he was one of them.

Oime, Oime. I think each time they come Up from the sea heart to the realm of air They are more far-removed from the sh.o.r.e.

When first I found him here, he slept E'en as he might after a long night's taking on the deep.

And when he woke some whit the old kind smile Dwelt round his lips and held him near to me.

But then strange gleams shot through the grey-deep eyes As though he saw beyond and saw not me.

And when he moved to speak it troubled him.

And then he plucked at gra.s.s and bade me eat.

And then forgot me for the sea its charm And leapt him in the wave and so was gone.

III

I wonder why he mocked me with the gra.s.s.

I know not any more how long it is Since I have dwelt not in my mother's house.

I know they think me mad, for all night long I haunt the sea-marge, thinking I may find Some day the herb he offered unto me.

Perhaps he did not jest; they say some simples have More wide-spanned power than old wives draw from them.

Perhaps, found I this gra.s.s, he'd come again.

Perhaps 'tis some strange charm to draw him here, 'Thout which he may not leave his new-found crew That ride the two-foot coursers of the deep, And laugh in storms and break the fishers' nets.

Oime, Oime!

SONG.

_Voices in the Wind._

We have worn the blue and vair, And all the sea-caves Know us of old, and know our new-found mate.

There's many a secret stair The sea-folk climb....

_Out of the Wind._

Oime, Oime!

I wonder why the wind, even the wind doth seem To mock me now, all night, all night, and Have I strayed among the cliffs here They say, some day I'll fall Down through the sea-bit fissures, and no more Know the warm cloak of sun, or bathe The dew across my tired eyes to comfort them.

They try to keep me hid within four walls.

I will not stay!

Oime!

And the wind saith; Oime!

I am quite tired now. I know the gra.s.s Must grow somewhere along this Thracian coast, If only he would come some little while and find it me.

ENDETH THE LAMENT FOR GLAUCUS

In Durance

I am homesick after mine own kind, Oh I know that there are folk about me, friendly faces, But I am homesick after mine own kind.

"These sell our pictures"! Oh well, They reach me not, touch me some edge or that, But reach me not and all my life's become One flame, that reacheth not beyond Mine heart's own hearth, Or hides among the ashes there for thee.

"Thee"? Oh "thee" is who cometh first Out of mine own-soul-kin, For I am homesick after mine own kind And ordinary people touch me not.

Yea, I am homesick After mine own kind that know, and feel And have some breath for beauty and the arts.

Aye, I am wistful for my kin of the spirit And have none about me save in the shadows When come _they_, surging of power, "DAEMON,"

"Quasi KALOUN" S.T. says, Beauty is most that a "calling to the soul."

Well then, so call they; the swirlers out of the mist of my soul, They that come mewards bearing old magic.

But for all that, I am home sick after mine own kind And would meet kindred e'en as I am, Flesh-shrouded bearing the secret.

"All they that with strange sadness"

Have the earth in mock'ry, and are kind to all, My fellows, aye I know the glory Of th' unbounded ones, but ye, that hide As I hide most the while And burst forth to the windows only whiles or whiles For love, or hope, or beauty or for power, Then smoulder, with the lids half closed And are untouched by echoes of the world.

Oh ye, my fellows: with the seas between us some be, Purple and sapphire for the silver shafts Of sun and spray all shattered at the bows Of such a "Veltro" of the vasty deep As bore my tortoise house scant years agone: And some the hills hold off, The little hills to east us, though here we Have damp and plain to be our shutting in.

And yet my soul sings "Up!" and we are one.

Yea thou, and Thou, and THOU, and all my kin To whom my breast and arms are ever warm, For that I love ye as the wind the trees That holds their blossoms and their leaves in cure And calls the utmost singing from the boughs That 'thout him, save the aspen, were as dumb Still shade, and bade no whisper speak the birds of how "Beyond, beyond, beyond, there lies...."

Guillaume de Lorris Belated

A Vision of Italy

Wisdom set apart from all desire, A h.o.a.ry Nestor with youth's own glad eyes, Him met I at the style, and all benign He greeted me an equal and I knew, By this his lack of pomp, he was himself.

Slow-Smiling is companion unto him, And Mellow-Laughter serves, his trencherman.

And I a thousand beauties there beheld.

And he and they made merry endlessly.

And love was rayed between them as a mist, And yet so fine and delicate a haze It did impede the eyes no whit, Unless it were to make the halo round each one Appear more myriad-jewelled marvellous, Than any pearled and ruby diadem the courts o' earth ha' known.

Slender as mist-wrought maids and hamadryads Did meseem these shapes that ministered, These formed harmonies with lake-deep eyes, And first the cities of north Italy I did behold, Each as a woman wonder-fair, And svelte Verona first I met at eve; And in the dark we kissed and then the way Bore us somewhile apart.

And yet my heart keeps tryst with her, So every year our thoughts are interwove As fingers were, such times as eyes see much, and tell.