Down-Adown-Derry Part 10

Thy emptiest solitude can bring Only a subtler questioning In thy divided heart. Thy bed Recalls at dawn what midnight said.

Seek how thou wilt to feign content, Thy flaming ardour's quickly spent; Soon thy last company is gone, And leaves thee--with thyself--alone.

Pomp and great friends may hem thee round, A thousand busy tasks be found; Earth's thronging beauties may beguile Thy longing lovesick heart awhile; And pride, like clouds of sunset, spread A changing glory round thy head; But fade will all; and thou must come, Hating thy journey, homeless, home.

Rave how thou wilt; unmoved, remote, That inward presence slumbers not, Frets out each secret from thy breast, Gives thee no rally, pause, nor rest, Scans close thy very thoughts, lest they Should sap his patient power away, Answers thy wrath with peace, thy cry With tenderest taciturnity.

THEY TOLD ME

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They told me Pan was dead, but I Oft marvelled who it was that sang Down the green valleys languidly Where the grey elder-thickets hang.

Sometimes I thought it was a bird My soul had charged with sorcery; Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard Inland the sorrow of the sea.

But even where the primrose sets The seal of her pale loveliness, I found amid the violets Tears of an antique bitterness.

THE SUNKEN GARDEN

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Speak not--whisper not; Here bloweth thyme and bergamot; Softly on the evening hour, Secret herbs their spices shower.

Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh, Lean-stalked, purple lavender; Hides within her bosom, too, All her sorrows, bitter rue.

Breathe not--trespa.s.s not; Of this green and darkling spot, Latticed from the moon's beams, Perchance a distant dreamer dreams; Perchance upon its darkening air, The unseen ghosts of children fare, Faintly swinging, sway and sweep, Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep; While, unmoved, to watch and ward, Amid its gloomed and daisied sward, Stands with bowed and dewy head That one little leaden Lad.

SNOW

No breath of wind, No gleam of sun-- Still the white snow Swirls softly down-- Twig and bough And blade and thorn All in an icy Quiet, forlorn.

Whispering, nestling, Through the air, On sill and stone, Roof--everywhere, It heaps its powdery Crystal flakes, Of every tree A mountain makes: Till pale and faint At shut of day, Stoops from the West One wintry ray.

Then, feathered in fire, Where ghosts the moon, A robin shrills His lonely tune; And from her dark-gnarled Yew-tree lair Flits she who had been In hiding there.

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THE WORLD OF DREAM

Now, through the dusk With m.u.f.fled bell The Dustman comes The World to tell, Night's elfin lanterns Burn and gleam In the twilight, wonderful World of Dream.

Hollow and dim Sleep's boat doth ride, Heavily still At the waterside.

Patter, patter, The children come, Yawning and sleepy, Out of the gloom.

Like droning bees In a garden green, Over the thwarts They clamber in.

And lovely Sleep With long-drawn oar Turns away From the whispering sh.o.r.e.

Over the water Like roses glide Her hundreds of pa.s.sengers Packed inside, To where in her garden Tremble and gleam The harps and lamps Of the World of Dream.

QUEEN DJENIRA

When Queen Djenira slumbers through The sultry noon's repose, From out her dreams, as soft she lies, A faint thin music flows.

Her lovely hands lie narrow and pale With gilded nails, her head Couched in its banded nets of gold Lies pillowed on her bed.

The little Nubian boys who fan Her cheeks and tresses clear, Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful voices Seem afar to hear.

They slide their eyes, and nodding, say, "Queen Djenira walks to-day The courts of the lord Pthamasar Where the sweet birds of Psuthys are."

And those of earth about her porch Of shadow cool and grey Their sidelong beaks in silence lean, And silent flit away.

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NIGHTFALL

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The last light fails--that shallow pool of day!

The coursers of the dark stamp down to drink, Arch their wild necks, lift their wild heads and neigh; Their drivers, gathering at the water-brink, With eyes as.h.i.+ne from out their cl.u.s.tering hair, Utter their hollow speech, or gaze afar, Rapt in irradiant reverie, to where Languishes, lost in light, the evening star.

Come the wood-nymphs to dance within the glooms, Calling these charioteers with timbrels' din; Ashen with twilight the dark forest looms O'er the nocturnal beasts that prowl within "O glory of beauty which the world makes fair!"

Pant they their serenading on the air.

Sound the loud hooves, and all abroad the sky The l.u.s.ty charioteers their stations take; Planet to planet do the sweet Loves fly, And in the zenith silver music wake.

Cities of men, in blindness hidden low, Fume their faint flames to that arched firmament, But all the dwellers in the lonely know The unearthly are abroad, and weary and spent, With rush extinguished, to their dreaming go.

And world and night and star-encl.u.s.tered s.p.a.ce The glory of beauty are in one enravished face.