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3 9007

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4175

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Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

in

2009

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funding from

Ontario Council of University Libraries

http://www.archive.org/details/sonnetotherlyricOOhill

SONNETS AND OTHER LYRICS

SONNETS
AND

OTHER LYRICS
Robert Silliman Hillyer

CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
Oxford Univebsitt Fbess

1917

P5

6C

COPYKIGHT, 1917

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments are due
for 'permission to reprint
to

The Seven Arts

Gull,''
to

"A

The
a

New

Republic for permission

to reprint

"To

Scarlatti Passepied,'' to

The Poetry Review for

to

permission

to reprint

"Doomsday," and
to

The

Harvard Monthly and

The Harvard Advocate

for permission to reprint verses first published

in those periodicals.

CONTEN TS
PAGE

SONNETS I-XXXIV
TO A SCARLATTI PASSEPIED

9-42
45

DOOMSDAY
SONG
:

46
the

In Venily

highways rang

48 50
51

KATAMA
TWILIGHT

OUT OF LUCRETIUS

53

BY WINTER SEAS
SONG: Now SONG:
time has gathered
to itself

54 56 57 58
61

When I

said farewell to thee

TO THOSE

WHO DEFENDED

A HERON A GULL
ANTINOUS

62
63

WINTER NIGHT THE RECOMPENSE

66
67

SONNETS

Quickly and

pleasantly the seasons blow

of eternity.

Over the meadows

As wave on wave the pulsings

of the sea

Merge and

are lost, each in the other's flow.

it is

Time
That

is

no lover;

only he

is

the one unconquerable foe.

He

is

the sudden tempest none can know,

swift winds that

Winged with

none

may hope to flee.

Fair child of loveliness, these endless fears

Are nought to

us; let us be gods of stone,

And

set

our images beyond the years

high

On some
And

mount where we can be

alone;

And thou

shalt ever be as

now thou

art,

I shall

watch thee with untroubled heart.

[9]

n
The
And
And
golden spring redeems the withered year,

wherefore should

my

spirit

be afraid

Though autumn winds

chill

wail through the

smoky shade

me

like the fleeting ghost of fear ?

Sweet love of youth, I know that thou must fade,

I

know what nameless

spectres hover near.

And

that the loveliness I hold so dear,

dust, to ashes

Borrowed from

must be

paid.

Yet

linger

still

over these wasted

meadows

Faint shreds of song, and scattered scents of flowers.

And from

the heart's abyss of deepening shadows

Rise the young passions of immortal hours.

The golden

spring

its

withered year redeems;

Sleep comes at

last,

but sleep made rich with dreams.

[lo:

m
1
I

HEN judge me

as thou wilt, I cannot flee,

cannot turn away from thee forever.

sever.

For there are bonds that wisdom cannot

And

slaves with souls far freer than the free.

desires the Universal Giver

Such strong

With unknown plan has buried deep

That the passionate joy

in

me.

of watching thee

Has dominated

all

my

life's

endeavor.

Thou

weariest of having

me

so near,

I feel the scorn

thou hast within thy heart.

And

yet,

thy face has never seemed so dear

I

As now, when

am minded
me

to depart.

Though thou
That
I shall

shalt drive

hence, I love thee so

watch thee when thou dost not know.

Cll]

IV

To
To

make my days impatient with

filch

unrest,

the quiet of the dark's repose.

Seeking forever what

Is ever far

beyond

my soul well knows my farthest quest;

and lingering woes,

So

this is love; swift joys

wistful kiss beneath the ashen west.

Farewell and greeting,

mouth

to

mouth once

pressed.

And
The

then the empty darkness onward flows.

heights that I have

won do not

endure.

They

shrink beneath the stars I yearn to win,

of

The triumphs

my

passion only lure

sin;

My

vagrant feet to tread the verge of

well I

Though
Love

know

that

when

I fall thereover.

will fly

hence; the loved one and the lover.

[12]

CANNOT yet admit unchecked despair

Since
I

now my

heart this

unknown

conflict wages,

know not what

the endless

strife presages,

I dare not

welcome hope, nor

fear

exile care. grief engages.

For love with

and hope with

And

I the burden of the battle bear;

Friends there are none, foes I have everywhere,

Hope

lies,

grief stabs,

and

still

the combat rages.

And

thou, sweet

monarch

of

my

love, hast

wrought

This ruin on

my

land of Venily,

And sown

rebellion in

my

humblest thought,

Making my dreams
But
stay, I

deal traitorously with

me;

would not that

is

this struggle cease.

For having thee

better far than peace.

[13]

VI

How
How
And

should I think of thee but with dehght

should I greet thy face but with a smile

yet dark tears within
of thee that I

my

heart defile

The dreams
If

would have so bright.

thou shouldst come and end this lonely while.

of the sleepless night,

These leaden hours

Still

should I fear to show thee what I write.

Lest I repent in vain, and thou revile.

Yet couldst thou read these

Graven
For one
in passion with
brief

scriptures of
control,

my

heart,

no base

moment, then, they might impart

offering

Some almost worthy

I write for thee,

from

my

soul.

and cannot
itself its

let

thee read.

Thus love denies

utmost need.

[14]

VII

How strange
Should make

it is

that thine ethereal grace

me

sorry
is

by

its loveliness,

For surely beauty

designed to bless

Those hours

of

youth that have so short a race.

of

And

yet the

memory

some old
I see

distress
face,

Shadows me over when

thy

And
Has

yearning ever for one swift embrace

tinged

my

joy in thee with bitterness.

The young

smiles flashing brightly free

stars that in

and

fair.

The laughing

thy deep eyes shine,

It is not love for

me

that lights

them

there,

I see their beauty, but they are not mine.

Thy

loveliness

is

joy poisoned with pain;

Rapture to

love,

torment to love

in vain.

[15]

VIII

The
Have

rising deluges of circumstance

flooded

all

the gardens of

my

dreams,

No more
Upon

the inner sun of gladness gleams

pale flowers of a lover's trance.

I

Dear Love,

know not why

this torrent

seems

To drown

in turbid billowings of of

chance

The blossoms
Soiling

thy visioned countenance,

with earthy streams.

my richest thoughts
is

The
I

river of the world

ever strong,

would that

I could leave this

doubtful shore,

And
The

yet I linger, hoping that ere long

swirling tide will crush
if

my

dreams no more.

And

my

gardens ever bloom again,

How

fair will

be thy perfect blossom then

[16]

IX

LOVE devoutly; thou

shalt seek for long

offering
I bring

Ere thou receive another

Such as these passionate tributes that

With
I

all

the deep submission of the strong.

all

would that

my

chants of thee could ring

of the nameless throng,

Through the great sorrows

And

that thy beauty echoing in

my

song

Could wake the weary city into spring.

Since thou hast changed

my

life,

and

in

my

heart

Hast deep implanted

this

new

love of
will

life,

Perchance these phantoms of thee

impart

Beauty and courage to a world at

strife.

And

yet I tarry long, in fear to share

of

With common men a song

one so

rare.

[17]

X
Ijet those

who

love hear me; I speak as one

Who
And

hath known every portion of love's pain.

all

the swift delights that flare and wane

rising sun.
left

Between the setting and the

Sins have I

known whose sweetness

no

stain,

And

virtues that

much

villainy

have done,

But now the pattern that

Is finished,

my
is

heart has spun

vain.

and

I see that it

Vain

is

the virgin kiss, and vain the thought

heart's desire

That binds the

from

afar,

Each

loves the image his

own mind has wrought,

Each worships no

true spirit, but a star.

By none

is

this believed until the years

tears.

Reveal the sad deception, and with

[18]

XI

We have come back to one another;

Thou
hast returned, since Love's

yes,

After long languishing in spheres apart,

own

self

thou

art.

And

I in penitence

and

fearfulness.

gentle Love, that leaves

me

not to smart

Forever in the clutches of

distress.

When

with a kindly pardon thou canst bless

Consummately

my

long-disconsolate heart,

Forgive
1

me

yet again,

if

to this joy

do not

rise at

once from melancholy.

sin thus to destroy
folly;

Mine was the utmost

Our calm devotion with unbridled

Bear with

me

yet awhile until I prove

The

tenderness of all-repentant love.

[19]

XII

WILL

fling

wide the windows

of

my

soul

Under the deep hush

of nocturnal skies,

When
And

the white legions of the stars arise

scroll.

write their secrets on the Master's

I will

go forth and watch with slumberous eyes

billows of the ocean roll

The languid

In silver rhythms on some hidden shoal,

Swelling with laughter, falling back with sighs.

And
The

in the tranquil twilight of that place,

lovely solitude of lonely sands.

Will flash the pale resplendence of thy grace

In sudden beauty out of other lands,

And

I will kneel

and

kiss thine ivory

hands

Beneath the flowered music

of

thy face.

[20]

XIII

JrooR faltering

lines,

my

weary

soul's relief.

The balm

of passion, opiate of pain,

A mightier hand
Had wrought
But though
in

than mine, a mightier brain,

you an immemorial

grief.

my

love and art both prove in vain,

I

Wither and die with me,

had as

lief

That

it

were

so; respite

however

brief

Is all-suflBcient to the living-slain.

For separate voices sink at eventide,

And none

survives the creeping hush of time.

life;

Nought hves but

the fame of them that died

Brings back no vestige of their lovely prime,

Fame and

oblivion shall

merge again

In nameless loves and laughter, tears and pain.

C21]

XIV

JLet

all
I,

men

see the ruins of the shrine

That

with passionate and holy care,

Built long ago from laughter and despair

That godly love might have a fane

divine.

Let the wide wings of darkness hover where

The god

of

youth once drank

his rarest wine,

And

let

the rank breath of some poisoned vine

last sigh that lingers

Choke the

on the

air.

Hurl the white sanctuary down, and bare

Its

inmost secrets to the gaze of men,

Unveil the altar to the vulgar stare,

And

let

none seek to build

it

up

again;

by
stone,

Ah, when the

I shall

last wall crumbles, stone

go hence that I

may weep

alone.

[82]

XV
How oft the traitor trumpet sounds retreat.
Beguiling

my

bewildered soul again.

When

all

the forces on the battle-plain

Are ready to do homage at

my

feet;
it is

And when
For then

I fight with strength,

in vain.

I find

no foe before

my

eyes,

They

lurk in shadow, waiting to surprise

My soul when it is weary and in pain.

How
shall I

gauge the

conflict

and the odds.

strife ?

Misled and blinded in the midst of

How
To

shall I

know mine enemy

Grant

me

one

moment worthy

of

O gods, my life,

see at last

beyond the dust and shade,

and unafraid.

And

face real foemen, strong

[23]

XVI

Even
The

as love grows more, I write the less,

still

Impelled to speak, unable

lyric

to voice

thoughts like angels that rejoice

loveliness.

Attendant on thy godly

Stay the bright swallow high in airy poise,

Carve out

of stone

an

infinite caress,

Garner the

fruits of tears

and happiness.
destroys.

Make bloom

forever

what an hour

Then shamed by such unprecedented

I

skill

may

find

words to name thee, and to sing

of

Such praises

thy beauty as

shall

fill

The
Till

listening world with floods of carolling;

then thou art

like starlight

on the

air,

Or clouds

at dawn, unutterably fair.

[24]

XVII

Voice

that art

life

to me, I almost hear

Thy

sweet familiar cadence on the breeze,

lost

At times a note At times a

high

among

the trees,

far call infinitely clear;

Face that art love to me,

my

spirit sees

In each unfolding bud of the young year

Imperfect shadows of thy grace appear,

For thou, dear one, art

fairer

than

all

these;

Soul that art part of me, at last I

know

What murmurs on
What hand
Filling the

the wakening breezes blow,

of ivory pours out the

wine

cup

of spring to overflow;

All beauty mirrors

what

is

only thine.

And thou

the source not mortal, but divine.

[25]

XVIII

Lovely

art thou,

and everything

of thine

Reflects the glory of thy noble grace;

That thou shouldst have returned

my

swift

embrace

Has made me

feel

that I too

am

divine.

My spirit met thy spirit face to face,

Thy
godlike heart has not rejected mine.
I

And And

have been uplifted

in the shrine,

high exalted in the holy place.

Think not that thou or

I shall ever fade

Forgotten in the silence of the years;

We are but
If

one, this world of

myth and shade

Shall not appall us with its dusty fears;

Death should find the hearts whom Love hath kissed,

and nothing doth
exist.

We never met,

[26]

XIX

Although
The

the spring

is

hastening to pursue

swift white deer of winter through the glades,

for breath

Sometimes they pause

beneath the shades;

Then blows the

frozen hurricane anew.

And

so the chill of thy neglect invades

in

My heart,

which

of late a timid

few

Flowers began to spring, until there blew

This sudden storm, blighting the tender blades.

But when

April at last shall put to flight

The

pallid cohorts of the lingering snow.

And

every leaf every

lifts

upward

to the light.
its

And

spirit

blossoms from

woe.
share

Ah, then

relent,
rise

and

let

me have my

Of

joy,

and

up radiant from

care.

[27]

XX
Xo
walk beside the
river in the

dawn

Is fair indeed

when

spring

is

in the breeze,

Bird-carollings, the

mumbHng hum

of bees

Sing matins from the dew-bespangled lawn;

And dancing
Lurks

there behind those druid trees,

in delight a little singing faun.

is

Who

laughs at us, and yet

always gone

When we would

trace his scattered melodies.

Alone, dear love, with thee and the

new day,

Now am I radiant like the golden fields, No distant longing and no dim dismay,
Nought but the gladness that the hour
yields.

To walk

beside the river

is

is

most

fair
is

When Love

young and spring

in the air!

[28]

XXI

Two

lovers stood alone beneath the night,

said,

And, quickened with a sudden strength, one

" To-night
is

ours to snatch from out the dead

An

immortality of vast delight.

has
felt

When Youth

the touch of time and

fled.

When Love
There
Ah,
is

in chill despair has

taken

flight,

one joy that knows not change nor blight,

kiss

me, ere the

fleeting

hour be sped!

"

The hovering moon leaned low

in rapt desire.

Two

souls uprose

beyond

oblivion,

shout triumphal shook the starry choir,

silence
fell,

Then sacred
Gazed
like

until the

sun

a victor, as he gazes now.

the undying vow.

On

the

new day and

[29]

XXII

Fly, joyous wind, through

all

the wakened earth.

Now when

the portals of the

dawn outpour

Laughter and radiant sunlight from the store

Of spring's glad passion and loud-ringing mirth.

Cry to the world that

I despair

no more;
its

Heart greets my heart, and hope has proved

worth;

Fly where the meadows swell in flowery birth,

Chant everywhere, and everywhere adore.

Circle the basking hills in fragrant flight.

Shout "Rapture! Rapture!"

if

sweet sorrow passes.

And

whisper low in intimate delight

My love-song to the undulating grasses.

Grief
is

no more, Love

rises

with the spring,

sing.

fly,

free wind,

and "Rapture! Rapture!"

[30]

XXIII

Over the
The
little

waters but a single bough

Stretches in silhouette against the moon,

dark waves haunt the dim lagoon

And

splash against the languid-moving prow.

I should

have

left

thee

when the afternoon

Surrendered to pursuing night, for

now

Too

perilously dear

and

fair art

thou.

And

love too soon invoked shall die too soon.

I fear the very floods of happiness

That

swell the

narrow chambers of

my

heart,

Knowing indeed that with our

Contentment and

first caress,

my

soul forever part;

all

O night
Shall

of love for

and beauty,

the years
tears.

pay

thy brief ecstasy with

[31]

XXIV

HERE was a boy

fled

in

some forgotten spring

comrades at the school,

Who
And
And

from

all his

in the hills beside a forest pool

Lay on

the grass, watching, and listening.

as he listened, melancholy delight

Stirred in his heart a

pang he did not know,

And

voices of

new

passion bade

him

write

Of the vague thoughts that shook

his spirit so.

Now
I

on the

battlefield of later times,

meet those dreams returning

foes

in the

forms
strife;

Of mighty friends and

amid the

And

reading those imperfect boyish rhymes,

I hear through the

blown dust

of

many

storms
life.

The hymns

of the

advance-guard of

my

[32]

XXV
Now
Here
would that thou wert
here,

my

happiness.

in the flesh, or else completely

gone

Out

of

my

life,

out of

my

thoughts withdrawn.

And memory
Night dreams

clean of love and old distress.

in pain of thee,
sit

and on that lawn and press

Where we would

at eventide,

Heart against heart, only white lonehness

Stretches beneath the winter's cheerless dawn.

Thou woundest me with

absence,

all

the air

Seems echoing thy name, and through the day

I

woo

forgetfulness,

but unaware
to our farewell caress.

My thoughts return
Now
Joy dwells with

would that thou wert here,

thee,

my

happiness,

and thou

art far away.

[33]

XXVI

What though the night

And

be dissonant with rain,

roofs drip in a mournful

monotone

On

the deserted streets, and breezes

moan

Over the naked boughs Hke ghosts

in pain;

Yet are there voices through the darkness blown

From some remote

That hint
of peace,

celestial

domain
all

and scatter

the vain

Questions that

mock

the soul brooding alone.

All nights are beautiful, but in the

warm

Wet

darkness that knows neither stars nor moon,

Whose bells half -heard through the complaining storm

Bind the wind's discords
in
its

harmonious tune,
cave of
rest.

The

soul withdraws into

And dreams

long dreams, well-loved, but not expressed.

[34]

XXVII

About
And
The

the headlands and the rocky shoals

I hear the breath of twilight, sighing, sighing,

over the wail and dash of breakers, crying,

voices of old ships
air

and wandering

souls.
flying,

Through the wet

squadrons of gulls are

skies,

Wheeling but once against the

then tossed

Into the wind like a flight of visions lost

With vanished

souls into the darkness dying.

harp of the winds singing above the dead,

rush of wings over the turbulent deep.

for the spirits

Pray

uncompanioned,
into oblivion,

The dreams returned The men

drifting far

from the

stars

and sun,

Lost in a lonely night and a loveless sleep.

[35]

XXVIII

HE

insurgent sea sweeps through the barrier

all its

Triumphant,

foaming strength amassed

tide,

In one tempestuous

wallowing past

The broken banks and the worn dykes that were

Upbuilt by coward hearts; sated at last
It settles in

calm pools about the bar.

star

So that at twihght the young evening

Beholds
its

image

in

still

waters cast.

Against unyielding shores I too have striven,

And won
And

at last like the uprising sea,

sink to rest beneath a quiet heaven.

After long struggles, a long victory;

But

my

star vanishes, its light

falls

withdrawn,

And

darkness

unpromising of dawn.

[36]

XXIX
OPEAK not

of

waning love and changing days,

short and
life

Youth may be

may

not endure,
sure.

Yet with a strength unslacked, a vision

My

love companions thee in

all

thy ways.

Whither thou wanderest

in times unsure
spirit strays

Of peace, however

far

thy

From

love of me,

my

spirit

ever stays

Close to thy side, and there shall rest secure.

If

thou shouldst weary of me, and alone

walked with
far

grief,

yet should I be aware

How
If

unworthy I had been to share

life,

In thy diviner

or sing thy praise;

thou shouldst hate me, yet I

of

am

thine own.

Speak not

waning love and changing days.

[37]

XXX
Who follows Love shall walk in outland places,
Beyond the common cheer
of hall

and town.

He

shall forget all things, the friendly faces.

strife for

The

wealth, the struggle for renown.

A young crusader putting by his crown, A pilgrim following a holy vision,

Heeding nor threat
of king nor gibe of clown.

The

tyrant's hatred nor the world's derision,

Thus

shall

he wander; in no bright Elysian be his quest, but through the vast

fears that shake his heart's decision
till

Meadows

shall

And midnight
With

staring madness,

he see at

last

Like Parsifal in ages long ago.

Love's flaming chalice out of darkness glow.

[38]

XXXI
Only
Whose

last
lips

night

we dwelt

together,

we

the ultimate farewells enthrall;

itself is

Last night

but a stone

let fall

Into the chasm of eternity.

There

shall

be echoes, I

shall hear

them

call

However
There

faint,

however

far they be;

shall

be shadows, I shall always see Time's memory-haunted

hall.

Them beckon from

The dear mirages
Glow

of the years

gone by

falsely golden
stir

from

their

dark domain.

But now they

me

not.

"

Mere mockery,"
pain.

Low
And

to

my
in

heart I say to

still its

cloud-built cities in the sunset sky

Fade out

dark across the endless plain.

[39]

XXXII

Hou only wert my

hope, and thou art gone.

Thou, the one star

in

monotones

of sky.

Art vanished Hke a meteor, and

I,

Lost in the night, have ceased to pray for dawn.

I

watched thee fade,

saw thee passing by

but

And
It

tried to call thee,

my

lips

were dumb;

had been better hadst thou never come,

riches

Remembered

mock my

poverty.

Blow from

afar the

little

sounds of

bells,
air,

Wood-smoke hangs

thinly on the
is

autumn

The town's unconscious hush

like

a prayer.
the dells;

And

night sleeps pleasantly

among

I only

wander on, and know not where.

faint farewells.

Through the great dark, pursued by

[40]

XXXIII

If in some

fair

Elysian seclusion

We
To

yet shall find the dreams that

we have wrought
strife is

guide our souls while the dark

these shades
finite

fought

Amongst
If

moving

in black confusion,

with our

sorrows

we have bought

Infinite joy, safe

from the world's intrusion.

And

in this wilderness of blind delusion

Have sought one

Then we
But

vision

worthy to be sought,

are not irrevocably parted,

fighting

upward, each in

his

own

fashion,

From mortal

dust to an immortal passion.

Separate in earthly chance, yet single-hearted,

We that
At dawn

in steep
shall

and lonely paths have

trod.

meet before the face of God.

C41]

XXXIV
Long
And

after

both

of us are scattered dust,

alien souls, perchance, shall read of thee.

Guessing the passions that have crushed from

me

These poor confessions

Ah, well
I

of

my

love and trust;

know how
will laugh,

heartless they will be.

For some

and

others,

more

unjust,
lust.

Whose minds know not

of love,

but only

Will stain the vesture of our

memory.

And

yet a few there

may

be

who

will feel

My true devotion
And know
Only new images

and

my

deep

desires.

that these

unhappy

lines reveal

in changeless fires;

And
To

they, indeed, will linger with a sigh

die.

think that beauty such as thine must

[42

OTHER LYRICS

TO A SCARLATTI PASSEPIED
OTRANGE
little

tune, so thin

and

rare,

Like scents of roses of long ago,

Quavering lightly upon the strings

Of a

violin,

and dying there

flutter of delicate wings;

With a dancing

Thy

courtly joy and thy gentle woe,

gracious gladness and plaintive fears
lost in

Thy
Are

the clamorous age

we know,

And

pale like a

moon

in the lurid day;

phantom

of music, strangely fled

From

the princely halls of the quiet dead, the long lanes of the vanished years.
frailly

Down

Echoing

and

far

away.

C45]

DOOMSDAY
The
Shall

garlands and the songs of

May

welcome

in the

Judgment Day;

About the basking countryside

Blossom the souls
of

them that
in

died.

O Dead,
Upon
They

awake! Arise

bloom!

the joyous day of doom.

rise

up from the bleeding earth

In gracious legions of rebirth,

Each

as a flower or a tree

Of verdant immortality,

And

hosts of lyric angels sing

In the rippling groves of spring.

From

the

tomb

of

youth there grows

A A

passionately petaled rose,

virgin whitely
lies,

Where the
lily fair

as Paradise,

And

in that old oak's leafy glee

sire

Some gouty

makes

sport of me.

[46]

Dead

of yore

and yesterday,

All hail the resurrecting

May!

Beside you in the flowering grass

The

feet of

youth and love

shall pass.

And we

that greet you with a smile

Shall join

you

in

little

while.

[47]

SONG
In Venily the highways rang

With

voices of the April day.

And
The

all

about the budding way

lyric soul of

morning sang.

The dripping

trees

were soft and new

hills,

When dawn
Gemming

lay smiling on the

her breast with daffodils,

And

bathing in the rainbow dew.

We trod the streets of Venily, We knew its paths, my love and

And when And when
the light
fell

I,

from the sky,

the dark devoured the sea.

We We

wrung each hour

lived each brave

of its joy.

unspoken thought.

But the day came, and we were nought,

Nought but a

frightened girl and boy.

[48]

The

flower of

remembrance springs

Where Venily
But
still

my

city stood,

in the enchanted

wood
sings.

The

lyric soul of

morning

[49]

KATAMA
1

HERE

is

no sunlight on the dunes

this hour,
skies,

For the

last

sword has swept the twilight

aloft,

Flashed far

and vanished.

A gull

flies

Like a black bee into the sunset flower.

Faint inarticulate echoes with the breeze

Drift in

upon the

silence

from

afar,

Like divine voices speaking wondrous rhymes;

And

slowly from the vague and misty seas

vigil rises

In lonely

the

first star,

Dreaming

of distant lands

and buried times.

C50]

TWILIGHT
Now the thrush
Now
no longer
calls

Through the woods' reverberant

halls.

the sunlight's flickering sheen

of green

Through the windy webs

Pales away, and deepening shades

Harbinger advancing night,

And

the creeping dusk invades

of the light.

The waning kingdom

Darkness with
its

coronet
hither yet,

Of

stars has not

come

Neither day nor night on high

Rules the regions of the sky,

Time has

fled,

and

fled also

Mortal fear and mortal woe.

Spirits sleeping far apart

Wondering

rise

white from tears,

Hand

clasps hand, heart kisses heart

Across the distance of the years.

Vision hour, twilight hour,

Dead

love and the withered flower

[51]

Claim thee as

their

own and bloom

Dream-like from a crumbled tomb;

Now
Now
And

the thrush no longer calls

halls,

Through the woods' reverberant

the dusk
is

come, and day

night and time are fled away.

[52]

OUT OF LUCRETIUS
Be calm, O soul
so often tried,

Sleep once was thine, and sleep shall

come
died,

again,

Ere thou wert born, when thou hast

Not

thine the pain.

Before thou wokest from the

womb
in the

Sorrow and hate were

old,

and fear and need,

Thou

didst not

know them;

tomb

Thou

shalt not heed.

Serenely face thine undertaking.

Sorrow

is

great

thy slumber shall be deep.

And

Ufe nought but a moment's waking

From

sleep to sleep.

[53]

BY WINTER SEAS
Beneath
the thin edge of the watery world
its

The sun drops down,

wavering Hght

is

cast

On

the white breakers foaming line on line;

flapping wind
is

The

furled
retreats at last.

And vanquished day

The

frozen dunes and the wet sands resign

Their tints of purple and of gold,

As gathering

in the

shadows they enfold

pall.

The

silence in

a seamless

So move the years to their predestined night. So fade the colours from the
festival

Of youth's imagining and

love's delight.

And

gradually from the failing sight

visionary lands
to rest on hopes afar,

The dark removes the

Which tempt the gaze

Leaving beneath a solitary star

Only the narrow prospect

of bleak sands.

scream strikes through the

falling at

air.

And

my

feet

from out the

frigid night

dead

gull flutters, stricken in its flight,

[54]

Its wings outstretched stiff with

unbending

ice.

Cold, cold and white

it

glimmers there,

still-unconsecrated sacrifice.

To what

cruel deity, pale wayfarer.

offered, stricken in the pride

Hast thou been

Of soaring over the immeasurable

tide

That sweeps

in slow

and wide
?

Above the

ruins of a thousand lands

The wings

that beat triumphant shall not stir

Again, nor shall a single note

Swell the strong sinews of that splendid throat.

And

soon beneath the

fickle

sands

Shall vanish the last sign of thy long strife.

Oh, what cruel god has plucked with impious hands

The
So
Its

pinions of adventure from thy

life ?

falls

the stricken spirit

down

the skies,

power blighted

in the frozen breath

Of time, and on some undiscovered shore

Gives up the trophies of
its

brave emprise.

While through the broken rocks and crannies pour

The

inrushing tides of overwhelming death. Z55

2

SONG
Now time has gathered
The
lily

to itself

and the

rose,

To mould upon a dusty

shelf

Where no man knows.

Now
And

all

things lovely

fail

and wane,

The tender
in the

petals close.
shall

dawn
no

bloom again

No

lily,

rose.

Now

from the garden

lily

of

thy face

The

and the rose

Are gathered to a dusty place

Where no man knows.

[56]

SONG
When I said farewell to thee,
Oh,
I

was a

skilful player!

Never actor laughed

like

me.

Never any mime was gayer;

But

my

heart in misery
in prayer.

Sought some god

Now
Tears

the night comes,

their lines

when

all

men

Put

and masques away.

will

claim the lover then

to the play;
till

As a prologue
Tears for darkness,

again

Laughter for the day.

[57]

TO THOSE
(The Lloyd

WHO DEFENDED
Prize Poem
1916)

McKim Garrison

Harvard Unu'ersitt,

iiow

vain

it

seems,

how

vain the vahant strength

Of nations

risen in splendour to the sun,

of battle-length

For down the weary stretch

Surges a conflict that
is

never done,
losses,

And

of all victories

and

none

Survives the

memory

of a day,

and time

Takes back the withering garlands one by one

Of vaunted triumph and

of cause sublime.

O Dead who
You
sacrificed

sacrificed

your years

of prime.

them

vainly,

and but died

Like actors in some oft-repeated mime.

Some outworn
Some
Far

play of Lust and Greed and Pride,

allegory writ

by bloody hands
past, in devastated lands.

in the

unknown

[58]

II

O nameless Dead of yore and yesterday Who sleep untroubled in deep quietude,
Long from the sharp alarums
of the fray,

You

rest so silently in the

subdued

Unchanging dusk

of dreamless solitude,

How
And

should you

know

that

still

the same gaunt war

Plows the old

flings

field of battle

where you stood,

the seed of suflFering afar!

Now quiet twilight Now falls the respite of

Of

woos the evening

a silent hour;

star,

Inviolate and calm the slumbers are

saints in holiness, of kings in power,

And calm

the legions are that

lie

in peace,

The dead who

sleep the white sleep of the last release.

[59]

Ill

No traitor trumpet summons for retreat Down dusty lines of shuddering despair, No trampled victory or red defeat
Screams a loud torment through the smoky
air,

Dead, or breaks your

sleep;

and yet somewhere

Your weary comrades

As you once
struggled,

struggle overhead

and

all

unaware
your stead.

They

fight the

same

fierce battles in

Awake once more!

Rise from your ashen bed!

You

died to end these wars,

now

rise to life

Again on the wide plains where once you bled

And

lost or

won; there consummate the

earth,

strife.

Cry from the bleeding

" This
is

from the shadowy past,

"

the last of wars! Forevermore the last!

[60]

HERON
marshes stands,

A HERON
The

in the

sentinel of lost outlands;

Unearthly white and immobile

He

keeps there in the dying light

silent

watch among the sedge,

Challenging the creeping night.

And

the slow mists that reel

Along the water's edge.

Then

as the twilight fades at last.

like

Suddenly

a thwarted ghost

He

rises

screaming in the vast,

vast,

Grey wings against the greying

And
But

soon

is lost.

in the sedge

and salty fen

His malediction rings again

Like the
sinister farewell

Of a soul from some

far hell.

Then the hazes

disappear.

And

the starlight, steady-clear,

air

Whitens the trembling

[61]

and breaks the

spell.

GULL

Grey

wings,

grey wings against a cloud

flashing.

Over the rough waves

Whose was

the scream, starthng and loud.

skies,

Keen through the

was
?

it

thine.

Piercing above the wind and the moaning whine

Of the wide seas dashing

Whose was

the scream that I heard

air,

In the midst of the hurrying

Was

it

thine, lost bird

Or the

voice of an old despair

Shrieking from years long dead.

Inexorable spirit flying

On

tempest wings, that passed and

?

fled

Through the storm crying

[62]

ANTINOUS

JJiM gardens sleep

in darkness, quiet trees

Weave
Out

their uncertain

boughs against the sky;

of the prison of a cloud there flees

The

fugitive
is

moon, slender and whitely shy.

There

music faltering upon the breeze

Despairing like the phantom of a sigh;

The night dreams deep

in lovehness, yet I
lovelier

Have deeper dreams and

For
I

memories.

have seen leaping from out the grey

groves the young Antinous,

And sombre

Dancing and chanting, vanishing away.

Leaving the passionate gardens tremulous.

Love!

Laughter!

fleet

and sinuous,

Full swiftly follows the despondent day.

[63]

II

How wan

and weary-eyed the cloudy dawn

Creeps through the mist with sick and halting tread;

The splendour
The

of these

wasted bowers
is

is

gone,

old illusion of the dark

dead.

Some godly

auspices have been withdrawn,

On
See

high some awful sentence has been said;

how

the garlands rot upon the head

Of yon

dispirited

and stony faun.

And

Adrian's ship with wild teeth in the foam,

to the foggy breeze,

With blazoned pinions

Bears on
its

decks the mightiest lords of Rome,

Imperial hosts upon disconsolate seas,

. . .

The gods

shall spare the

majesty of these.
returns not home.

But one white laughing boy

[64]

in

Come,

let

us hasten hence and weep no more,

its

The

sinking sea resumes

tranquil ways,

Night looms expectant at the eastern door

And

trails

the last cloud into

lifeless

haze.

Antinous

is

dead;

we

kneel before

The

portals of our past in vain, nor raise

of our yesterdays

The laughing phantoms

Upon

this desolate

and empty shore.

Now

deepening pools of shadow overflow

Into the sea of dark.

A far-off bell

Sobs with a sweet vibration, long and slow,

A last farewell,
And And
will will

forevermore farewell.
?

he wake and hear

We

cannot

tell.

he answer

Ah, we do not know.

[65]

WINTER NIGHT
The
On
snow
lies crisp

beneath the

stars.

roofs

and on the ground,

Late footsteps crunch along the paths,

There

is

no other sound.
the very trees

So cold

it is

Snap

in the rigid frost,

dreadful night to think on them,

lost.

The homeless and the

The dead
The

sleep sheltered in the

tomb;

rich drink in the hall;

The

Virgin and the Holy Child

in a stall.

Crouch shivering

166

THE RECOMPENSE
When the last song
Of
is

sung, and the last spark

light dies out forever,

and the dark.

The

voiceless

dark eternal, shrouds the earth,

When

the last cries of pain and shouts of mirth

Sink in the desolate silences of space.

Where then

shall flower the

beauty of your face

Love the laughing. Youth the rose-in-hand,

In what unknown and undiscovered land

Shall flower then the beauty of your face
I
?

know

not, but I

know

that

all

returns

At

last

unchanged, and to the heart that yearns

Shall be repaid all loneliness

and

loss;

Sometime with shadowy

sails shall fly across

The

shoreless ocean of infinity

A
Of

ship from out the past,

life shall

and the great sea

bear you from the

new worlds over

The waves, and back again

to the old lover.

[67]

PBIHTED AT

THE HARVARD CNIVERBITT PRESS

CAUBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A.