Read Ebook: Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes. Volume I. by De La Mare Walter

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Ebook has 644 lines and 25300 words, and 13 pages

Once yet I came; the winter stars Above thy house wheeled wildly bright; Footsore I stood before thy door-- Wide open into night.

THE MIRACLE

Who bids the hollyhock uplift Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high; Fling wide her petals--silent, swift, Lovely to the sky? Since as she kindled, so she will fade, Flower above flower in squalor laid.

Ever the heavy billow rears All its sea-length in green, hushed wall; But totters as the shore it nears, Foams to its fall; Where was its mark? on what vain quest Rose that great water from its rest?

So creeps ambition on; so climb Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high, Forgets his birth, small space, brief time, That he shall die; Dreams blindly in his dark, still air; Consumes his strength; strips himself bare;

Rejects delight, ease, pleasure, hope, Seeking in vain, but seeking yet, Past earthly promise, earthly scope, On one aim set: As if, like Chaucer's child, he thought All but "O Alma!" nought.

KEEP INNOCENCY

Like an old battle, youth is wild With bugle and spear, and counter cry, Fanfare and drummery, yet a child Dreaming of that sweet chivalry, The piercing terror cannot see.

He, with a mild and serious eye Along the azure of the years, Sees the sweet pomp sweep hurtling by; But he sees not death's blood and tears, Sees not the plunging of the spears.

And all the strident horror of Horse and rider, in red defeat, Is only music fine enough To lull him into slumber sweet In fields where ewe and lambkin bleat.

O, if with such simplicity Himself take arms and suffer war; With beams his targe shall gilded be, Though in the thickening gloom be far The steadfast light of any star!

Though hoarse War's eagle on him perch, Quickened with guilty lightnings--there It shall in vain for terror search, Where a child's eyes beneath bloody hair Gaze purely through the dingy air.

And when the wheeling rout is spent, Though in the heaps of slain he lie; Or lonely in his last content; Quenchless shall burn in secrecy The flame Death knows his victors by.

THE PHANTOM

Wilt thou never come again, Beauteous one? Yet the woods are green and dim, Yet the birds' deluding cry Echoes in the hollow sky, Yet the falling waters brim The clear pool which thou wast fain To paint thy lovely cheek upon, Beauteous one!

I may see the thorny rose Stir and wake The dark dewdrop on her gold; But thy secret will she keep Half-divulged--yet all untold, Since a child's heart woke from sleep.

The faltering sunbeam fades and goes; The night-bird whistles in the brake; The willows quake; Utter darkness walls; the wind Sighs no more. Yet it seems the silence yearns But to catch thy fleeting foot; Yet the wandering glowworm burns Lest her lamp should light thee not-- Thee whom I shall never find; Though thy shadow lean before, Thou thyself return'st no more-- Never more.

All the world's woods, tree o'er tree, Come to nought. Birds, flowers, beasts, how transient they, Angels of a flying day. Love is quenched; dreams drown in sleep; Ruin nods along the deep: Only thou immortally Hauntest on This poor earth in Time's flux caught; Hauntest on, pursued, unwon, Phantom child of memory, Beauteous one!

VOICES

Who is it calling by the darkened river Where the moss lies smooth and deep, And the dark trees lean unmoving arms, Silent and vague in sleep, And the bright-heeled constellations pass In splendour through the gloom; Who is it calling o'er the darkened river In music, "Come!"?

Who is it wandering in the summer meadows Where the children stoop and play In the green faint-scented flowers, spinning The guileless hours away? Who touches their bright hair? who puts A wind-shell to each cheek, Whispering betwixt its breathing silences, "Seek! seek!"?

Who is it watching in the gathering twilight When the curfew bird hath flown On eager wings, from song to silence, To its darkened nest alone? Who takes for brightening eyes the stars, For locks the still moonbeam, Sighs through the dews of evening peacefully Falling, "Dream!"?

THULE

If thou art sweet as they are sad Who on the shores of Time's salt sea Watch on the dim horizon fade Ships bearing love to night and thee;

If past all beacons Hope hath lit In the dark wanderings of the deep They who unwilling traverse it Dream not till dawn unseal their sleep;

Ah, cease not in thy winds to mock Us, who yet wake, but cannot see Thy distant shores; who at each shock Of the waves' onset faint for thee!

THE BIRTHNIGHT: TO F.

Dearest, it was a night That in its darkness rocked Orion's stars; A sighing wind ran faintly white Along the willows, and the cedar boughs Laid their wide hands in stealthy peace across The starry silence of their antique moss: No sound save rushing air Cold, yet all sweet with Spring, And in thy mother's arms, couched weeping there, Thou, lovely thing.

THE DEATH-DREAM

Who, now, put dreams into thy slumbering mind? Who, with bright Fear's lean taper, crossed a hand Athwart its beam, and stooping, truth maligned, Spake so thy spirit speech should understand, And with a dread "He's dead!" awaked a peal Of frenzied bells along the vacant ways Of thy poor earthly heart; waked thee to steal, Like dawn distraught upon unhappy days, To prove nought, nothing? Was it Time's large voice Out of the inscrutable future whispered so? Or but the horror of a little noise Earth wakes at dead of night? Or does Love know When his sweet wings weary and droop, and even In sleep cries audibly a shrill remorse? Or, haply, was it I who out of dream Stole but a little where shadows course, Called back to thee across the eternal stream?

"WHERE IS THY VICTORY?"

None, none can tell where I shall be When the unclean earth covers me; Only in surety if thou cry Where my perplexed ashes lie, Know, 'tis but death's necessity That keeps my tongue from answering thee.

Even if no more my shadow may Lean for a moment in thy day; No more the whole earth lighten, as if, Thou near, it had nought else to give: Surely 'tis but Heaven's strategy To prove death immortality.

Yet should I sleep--and no more dream, Sad would the last awakening seem, If my cold heart, with love once hot, Had thee in sleep remembered not: How could I wake to find that I Had slept alone, yet easefully?

Or should in sleep glad visions come: Sick, in an alien land, for home Would be my eyes in their bright beam; Awake, we know 'tis not a dream; Asleep, some devil in the mind Might truest thoughts with false enwind.

Innocent children out of nought Build up a universe of thought, And out of silence fashion Heaven: So, dear, is this poor dying even, Seeing thou shall be touched, heard, seen, Better than when dust stood between.

FOREBODING

Thou canst not see him standing by-- Time--with a poppied hand Stealing thy youth's simplicity, Even as falls unceasingly His waning sand.

He will pluck thy childish roses, as Summer from her bush Strips all the loveliness that was; Even to the silence evening has Thy laughter hush.

Thy locks too faint for earthly gold, The meekness of thine eyes, He will darken and dim, and to his fold Drive, 'gainst the night, thy stainless, old Innocencies;

Thy simple words confuse and mar, Thy tenderest thoughts delude, Draw a long cloud athwart thy star, Still with loud timbrels heaven's far Faint interlude.

VAIN FINDING

Ever before my face there went Betwixt earth's buds and me A beauty beyond earth's content, A hope--half memory: Till in the woods one evening-- Ah! eyes as dark as they, Fastened on mine unwontedly, Grey, and dear heart, how grey!

NAPOLEON

ENGLAND

No lovelier hills than thine have laid My tired thoughts to rest: No peace of lovelier valleys made Like peace within my breast.

Thine are the woods whereto my soul, Out of the noontide beam, Flees for a refuge green and cool And tranquil as a dream.

Thy breaking seas like trumpets peal; Thy clouds--how oft have I Watched their bright towers of silence steal Into infinity!

My heart within me faults to roam In thought even far from thee: Thine be the grave whereto I come, And thine my darkness be.

TRUCE

Far inland here Death's pinions mocked the roar Of English seas; We sleep to wake no more, Hushed, and at ease; Till sound a trump, shore on to echoing shore, Rouse from a peace, unwonted then to war, Us and our enemies.

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