Ships in Harbour Part 6

RACONTEUR

The Earth remembers many, many things, Kept of her pride, a rich and ancient lore,-- The fading footprints of her transient Springs, Her nameless cities, and the stones they wore.

Anointed shrines that men had perished for, And women who were music for their times, These, and the world's long iliads of war, Will haunt her heart like dear, remembered rhymes.

I have imagined how it might be so, When Earth takes home this wandering dust again, There may be stories I shall come to know, Of tragic queens and towns and valiant men,-- Old honoured tales that Earth may tell to me, As mothers do, for children at the knee.

AFFINITIES

Young girls love a slender birch, Tall and blowing in the wind, Silvered in the sun and rain, And beautifully thinned.

Old men love an apple-tree Twisted and gnarled as they; But when new blossoms line the bough, The old men look away.

TRANSFIGURATION

What old historic dust gives back the rose!

What crumbled empires yield the creeping vine!

And purple grapes have sucked a pleasant wine From ramparts that had bowed to sudden blows.

Where now the unregarded river flows, Old dissolute cities, their debauches done, Lift up a slender blossom to the sun, Steeped in the thoughtful silence where it grows.

Where Splendour was, no Splendour is today: Ruin has wrought upon the crowns of kings, Their throne-rooms all are green and tender things ...

And wonder dies,--save in the patient way Of these slow trans.m.u.tations in the dust: Beauty from power, lilies out of l.u.s.t.

ONE WAY OF SPRING

The Spring came to this street with spinning tops, And marbles rolling where the yards were bare, With parti-coloured bonnets in the shops, And young girls' laughter on the sterile air.

Through open windows and from stair to stair, Went women's voices, calling each to each, And in the cramped and crowded little square, The ancient hush of soft and tender speech.

For all the lack of green things coming in, That magic that was marbles in the street, That swept the stairs, and moved the tops to spin, Was wine and music, potent still and sweet, As when it swayed those graceful girls of Troy, And set to dreaming many a Trojan boy.

FOR A SEQUESTERED LADY

Roses, roses at her door, Roses bringing something more Than one Summer to her door,-- Beauty, beauty evermore.

Roses that were Guinivere In a far-off golden year, Hair that blinded like the sun, Hands that never would have done With the white spells that they wrought, Till a city came to naught,-- Hands and hair and hearts, at last, Dust! Till now, their slumbers past, Roses bloom about her door, Beauty, beauty evermore....

Trojan maidens who had been Still, white faces through the din Of those chariots gone by, Stars above a troubled sky-- Beauty pa.s.sing to re-pa.s.s, Pearl-white feet across the gra.s.s, Crowns of beauty that they wore Given to the dust for more Roses, roses at her door....

All old tales of beauty dead, Hands and hair and lifted head, Gone from cities long forgot: Rimini and Camelot, Lovers who had been like light, Summertime and dream ... and Night ...

Now, their night of sleeping gone, Roses rise above the lawn.

Roses, roses at her door, Roses bringing something more Than one Summer to her door ...

Beauty, beauty evermore.

HERITAGE

All purged, at last, are glories in the dust,-- Those temples that were wors.h.i.+p for a day.

The gallant banners of a people's trust, And hands and lips--and Aprils brief as they.

Beyond their lighted moment in the sun, They bore away their splendours and their stains; Now they are dust, the cleansing ritual done, And only their dim holiness remains.

Since I am somehow fas.h.i.+oned out of these, The quickened dust of city, saint and gra.s.s, Of holy altars and old mysteries,-- Let me be mindful of them where I pa.s.s, Dishonouring not this garment among men, Lest I be shamed when I am dust again.

"s.h.i.+PPING NEWS"

(_A Maritime Paper_)

Here is the record of their splendid days: The curving prow, the tall and stately mast, And all the width and wonder of their ways, Reduced to little printed words, at last; The _Helen Dover_ docks, the _Mary Ann_ Departs for Ceylon and the Eastern trade; Arrived: _The Queen_, with cargoes from j.a.pan, And _Richard Kidd_, a tramp, and _Silver Maid_.

The narrow print is wide enough for these: But here: "Reported missing" ... the type fails, The column breaks for white and angry seas, The jagged spars thrust through, and flapping sails Flagging farewells to wind and sky and sh.o.r.e, Arrive at silent ports, and leave no more.

ARTICULATION

With what bright symbols have we learned, at last, To write the epic of the tender Springs!-- We, who were dumb so many centuries past, Who found no word for frail and lovely things.

In tongue-tied wonder at the blossoming earth, We watched the trailing seasons loiter by, Too inarticulate of their transient worth, Beyond the saddened utterance of a sigh.

What Aprils taught us, children at the knee, Word by slow word, the language April knows!

What Summers broke that brooding reverie, Through patient iterations of the rose!-- Ah, dearest tutors of our lisping-time, Today we bring you of our brightest rhyme.