Read Ebook: The Five Books of Youth by Hillyer Robert

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Ebook has 321 lines and 14409 words, and 7 pages

BOOK I A MISCELLANY

BOOK II DAYS AND SEASONS

BOOK V SONNETS

BOOK I A MISCELLANY

I - LA MARE DES FEES

The leaves rain down upon the forest pond, An elfin tarn green-shadowed in the fern; Nine yews ensomber the wet bank, beyond The autumn branches of the beeches burn With yellow flame and red amid the green, And patches of the darkening sky between.

This is an ancient country; in this wood The Druids raised their sacrificial stones; Here the vast timeless silences still brood Though the cold wind's October monotones Fan the enchanted senses with the dread Of holiness long-past and beauty dead.

How far beyond this glade the day-world turns Upon its pivot of reward and chance; Farther than the first star that palely burns Over the forest's meditative trance. First star of evening, last star of day, The one grows clear, the other dies away.

Will they come back who once beneath these trees Invoked their long-forgotten gods with tears, Who heard the sob of the same twilight breeze Blow down the vistas of remembered years, Beside the tarn's black waters where they stood Close to their god, far from the multitude?

I watch, but they are long ago departed, Far as the world of day, or as the star; The forest loved her priests, and tranquil-hearted They stole away in dim procession, far Down the unechoing aisles, beyond recalling; The moss grows on the stones, the leaves are falling.

In vain I listen for their hissing speech, And seek white holy hands upon the air, They told their worship to the yew and beech, And left them with the secret, trembling there, Nor shall they come at midnight nor at dawn; The gods are dead; the votaries are gone.

MORET-SUR-LOING, 1918

II - PROTHALAMION

The faded turquoise of the sky Darkens into ocean green Flecked palely where the stars will rise. A single bough between The spacious colour and your half-closed eyes Hangs out its hazy traceries. Still, like a drowsy god you lie, My fair unbidden guest, Your white hands crossed beneath your head, Your lips curved strangely mute with peace, Your hair moved lightly by the breeze. A glow is shed Warm on your face from the last rays that push From the dying sun into the green vault of the west.

This is your bridal night; the golden bush Is heavy with the fruits that you will taste, Full ripened in desire. You who have hoarded youth, this is your hour of waste, Your hour of squandering and drunkenness, Of wine-dashed lips and generous caress, Of brows thorn-crowned and bodies crucified,-- O bid me to the feast.

Tomorrow when the hills are washed with fire, Your door ajar against the flashing East,-- O fling it wide.

PARIS, 1919

A rocky hill above the town, Grey as the soul of silence, Except where two white strutting domes Stand aloof and frown On the huddled homes Of world-wept love and pain,-- They do not heed that tall disdain, But sleep, grey, under the stars and the rain.

A woman, young, but old in love, Carried her child across the square; Her face was a dim drifting flame To which her pyre of hair Was a column of golden smoke.

Her eyes half told the secrets of Gay sins that no regret defiled; There her heart broke In the little question between her eyes. Hearing the trees in the square she smiled, And sang to the child.

So passed by in the narrow street That climbs the steep rock over the town, Love and the west wind in the stars; The wind and the sound of those lagging feet

Died like forgotten tears. I waited till the stars went down, And I wrote these lines on a cloud to greet The dawn on the crystal stairs.

PARIS, 1919

IV - A LETTER

Dear boy, what can this stranger mean to you, Blown to your country by unbridled chance? That he should drink the morn's first cup of dew Fresh from the spring, and quicken that grave glance Wherein as rising tides on hazy shores Rise the new flames and colours of romance?

Ah, wise and young, the world shall use your youth And fling you shorn of beauty to despair, The sum of all that fascinating truth That you have gleaned, hands tangled in brown hair, Eyes straining into contemplative fires,-- This truth shall not seem truth when trees are bare.

The hunger of the soul, the watcher left To brood the nearness of his own decay, Dully remarking the slow shameless theft Of the old holiness from day to day, How youth grows tarnished, wisdom changes false,-- Till one bends near to steal your life away.

Yet who am I to turn aside the hand Outstretched so friendly and so humbly proud, Heaped up with beauty from the sunrise land Of hearts adventurous and heads unbowed? Only, look not at me with changing eyes When we must separate amid the crowd.

TOURS, 1918

V - ESTHER DANCING

Speak not nor stir. Here music is alive, Woven from those swift fingers, strong and light, Marching across those singing hands, or shed Slowly, like echoes down the muffled night, Or beautifully translated, note by note, Some fainter voice, rhapsodic and remote, Or shaken out in melodies that dive Clear into fathoms of profounder things, Then suddenly again on rising wings, Burst into sun and hover overhead.

Incarnate music flashing into form Fled from the vineyards of melodious Greece, Feet that have flown before the gathering storm Or glanced in gardens of the Golden Fleece, Face atune to all the songs that mass Their gusts of passion on the sunlit grass, Image of lyric hope and veiled despair, Like them, thou shalt unutterably pass Into the silence and the shadowed air.

POMFRET, 1919

VI - HUNTERS

A vase red-wrought in Athens long ago.... The hunter and his gay companion ride Through the young fields of life; on every side Frail and fantastic the tall lilies grow. Her head thrown back, her eyes afraid and wide, Flies like a phantom the grey spectral doe, Her light feet scarcely bend the grass below, Gloriously flying into eventide.

Ahead there lies the shadow, then the dark, And safety in the thick forestial night, But nearer still she hears the bloodhounds bark, And horses panting in impetuous flight, And hunters without pity for the slain, Halloing shrilly over the windy plain.

Sombre become the skies, the winds of fall Sing dangerously through the hissing grass; Sunlight and clouds in slow procession pass Over the tress, then comes an interval Of utter calm, the air is a morass Of humid breathlessness. A dreadful call Rings suddenly from the onrushing squall, And the storm closes in a whirling mass.

And still the doe eludes the raging hounds, And still the youths press onward toward the woods, Though the world shudders with diluvian sounds And the rain streams in undulating floods. Sharp lightning splits the sky; the doe is gone. O follow! follow! if it be till dawn.

The hunted flees, the boyish hunters follow Into the forest's dripping everglades, The wind goes wailing through the swaying shades, And violent rain gushes in every hollow. The doe runs free, triumphantly evades Those straining eyes; the ghastly shadows swallow Her flying form; the frightened horses wallow Deep in the mire. Then the last daylight fades.

O Youths, turn back! the year is getting late, And autumn has no pity for the slain. Twining like serpents, the lean arms of fate Grope toward you through the blackness and the rain, Then Death, and the obliterating snow.... A vase, red-wrought in Athens long ago.

Tours, 1918

Cape Cod, 1916

Lest the swift world forget their names and pass Unthinking, they have set this cold dead slate Above their slumbers in the living grass To warn all comers of impending fate;

Where friends made merry once at their behest, Where young feet strolled about the shady lawn, They welcome none but one unfailing guest, And all the revellers but Death are gone.

Edgartown, 1916

This is the hour when all substantial foes Are exorcised and taunt the soul no more; Now thinner grows the veil between the shore Of vaster worlds and our calm garden close. Through the small exit of the open door We pass, and seem to feel the eyes of those We knew upon us; almost we suppose The advent of the face we tremble for.

O that through this profound serenity Might sound the answer to the heart's deep cry; If all those gracious presences might see That, though we hurt them once, they shall not die Until we also wither, we who keep Vigil on these sweet meadows where they sleep.

Pomfret, 1919

X - WHEN THE DOOR WAS OPEN

Lonely as music from afar, Hung the new moon and one white star, Above the poplars black and tall That sentineled the garden wall; Four black poplars beyond the wall, Two on each side of the garden gate, In silhouette against the wide Pale sky of the late eventide. Close was the garden and serene. The leaning reeds in quiet state About the pool, merged in the green Of misty leaves and hanging vines. The fireflies spun their silver lines Across the deeper atmosphere, And through the silence came the clear Persistent tuning of the frogs From dank recesses of the bogs.

Beyond the garden I could see The glimmer of uncertain meadows, Framed by the open doorway, wreathing Sarabands of ghostly shadows, Slowly turning, slowly breathing, Largely and unhastily,-- But the garden held its breath.

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