New Poems Part 13

FAIR ISLE AT SEA

FAIR Isle at Sea-thy lovely name Soft in my ear like music came.

That sea I loved, and once or twice I touched at isles of Paradise.

LOUD AND LOW IN THE CHIMNEY

LOUD and low in the chimney The squalls suspire; Then like an answer dwindles And glows the fire, And the chamber reddens and darkens In time like taken breath.

Near by the sounding chimney The youth apart Hearkens with changing colour And leaping heart, And hears in the coil of the tempest The voice of love and death.

Love on high in the flute-like And tender notes Sounds as from April meadows And hillside cotes; But the deep wood wind in the chimney Utters the slogan of death.

I LOVE TO BE WARM BY THE RED FIRESIDE

I LOVE to be warm by the red fireside, I love to be wet with rain: I love to be welcome at lamplit doors, And leave the doors again.

AT LAST SHE COMES

AT last she comes, O never more In this dear patience of my pain To leave me lonely as before, Or leave my soul alone again.

MINE EYES WERE SWIFT TO KNOW THEE

MINE eyes were swift to know thee, and my heart As swift to love. I did become at once Thine wholly, thine unalterably, thine In honourable service, pure intent, Steadfast excess of love and laughing care: And as she was, so am, and so shall be.

I knew thee helpful, knew thee true, knew thee And Pity bedfellows: I heard thy talk With answerable throbbings. On the stream, Deep, swift, and clear, the lilies floated; fish Through the shadows ran. There, thou and I Read Kindness in our eyes and closed the match.

FIXED IS THE DOOM

FIXED is the doom; and to the last of years Teacher and taught, friend, lover, parent, child, Each walks, though near, yet separate; each beholds His dear ones s.h.i.+ne beyond him like the stars.

We also, love, forever dwell apart; With cries approach, with cries behold the gulph, The Unvaulted; as two great eagles that do wheel in air Above a mountain, and with screams confer, Far heard athwart the cedars.

Yet the years Shall bring us ever nearer; day by day Endearing, week by week, till death at last Dissolve that long divorce. By faith we love, Not knowledge; and by faith, though far removed, Dwell as in perfect nearness, heart to heart.

We but excuse Those things we merely are; and to our souls A brave deception cherish.

So from unhappy war a man returns Unfearing, or the seaman from the deep; So from cool night and woodlands to a feast May someone enter, and still breathe of dews, And in her eyes still wear the dusky night.

MEN ARE HEAVEN'S PIERS

MEN are Heaven's piers; they evermore Unwearying bear the skyey floor; Man's theatre they bear with ease, Unfrowning cariatides!

I, for my wife, the sun uphold, Or, dozing, strike the seasons cold.

She, on her side, in fairy-wise Deals in diviner mysteries, By spells to make the fuel burn And keep the parlour warm, to turn Water to wine, and stones to bread, By her unconquered hero-head.

A naked Adam, naked Eve, Alone the primal bower we weave; Sequestered in the seas of life, A Crusoe couple, man and wife, With all our good, with all our will, Our unfrequented isle we fill; And victor in day's petty wars, Each for the other lights the stars.

Come then, my Eve, and to and fro Let us about our garden go; And, grateful-hearted, hand in hand Revisit all our tillage land, And marvel at our strange estate, For hooded ruin at the gate Sits watchful, and the angels fear To see us tread so boldly here.

Meanwhile, my Eve, with flower and gra.s.s Our perishable days we pa.s.s; Far more the thorn observe-and see How our enormous sins go free- Nor less admire, beside the rose, How far a little virtue goes.

THE ANGLER ROSE, HE TOOK HIS ROD

THE angler rose, he took his rod, He kneeled and made his prayers to G.o.d.

The living G.o.d sat overhead: The angler tripped, the eels were fed

SPRING CAROL

WHEN loud by landside streamlets gush, And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush, With sun on the meadows And songs in the shadows Comes again to me The gift of the tongues of the lea, The gift of the tongues of meadows.

Straightway my olden heart returns And dances with the dancing burns; It sings with the sparrows; To the rain and the (grimy) barrows Sings my heart aloud- To the silver-bellied cloud, To the silver rainy arrows.

It bears the song of the skylark down, And it hears the singing of the town; And youth on the highways And lovers in byways Follows and sees: And hearkens the song of the leas And sings the songs of the highways.

So when the earth is alive with G.o.ds, And the l.u.s.ty ploughman breaks the sod, And the gra.s.s sings in the meadows, And the flowers smile in the shadows, Sits my heart at ease, Hearing the song of the leas, Singing the songs of the meadows.

TO WHAT SHALL I COMPARE HER?

TO what shall I compare her, That is as fair as she?

For she is fairer-fairer Than the sea.