Edward Shanks

The Rock Pool

This is the sea. In these uneven walls A wave lies prisoned. Far and far away Outward to ocean, as the slow tide falls, Her sisters through the capes that hold the bay Dancing in lovely liberty recede. Yet lovely in captivity she lies, Filled with soft colours, where the wavering weed Moves gently and discloses to our eyes Blurred shining veins of rock and lucent shells Under the light-shot water; and here repose Small quiet fish and dimly glowing bells Of sleeping sea-anemones that close Their tender fronds and will not now awake Till on these rocks the waves returning break.

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The Glade

We may raise our voices even in this still glade: Though the colours and shadows and sounds so fleeting seem, We shall not dispel them. They are not made Frailly by earth or hands, but immortal in our dream. We may touch the faint violets with the hands of thought, Or lay the pale core of the wild arum bare; And for ever in our minds the white wild cherry is caught, Cloudy against the sky and melting into air. This which we have seen is eternally ours, No others shall tread in the glade which now we see; Their hands shall not touch the frail tranquil flowers, Nor their hearts faint in wonder at the wild white tree.

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Memory

In silence and in darkness memory wakes Her million sheathèd buds, and breaks That day-long winter when the light and noise And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will Made barren her tender soil, when every voice Of her million airy birds was muffled or still. One bud-sheath breaks: One sudden voice awakes. What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay, Her broad sail dimly white On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they? Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight, Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down, Talking in whispers, to the little town, Down from the narrow hill — Talking in whispers, for the air so still Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made A quiet equal with the equal shade That filled the slanting walk. That phantom now Slides with slack canvas and unwhispering prow Through the dark sea that this dark room has made. Or the night of the closed eyes will turn to day, And all day's colours start out of the gray. The sun burns on the water. The tall hills Push up their shady groves into the sky, And fail and cease where the intense light spills Its parching torrent on the gaunt and dry Rock of the further mountains, whence the snow That softened their harsh edges long is gone, And nothing tempers now The hot flood falling on the barren stone. O memory, take and keep All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home — Those other days beneath the low white dome Of smooth-spread clouds that creep As slow and soft as sleep, When shade grows pale and the cypress stands upright, Distinct in the cool light, Rigid and solid as a dark hewn stone; And many another night, That melts in darkness on the narrow quays, And changes every colour and every tone, And soothes the waters to a softer ease, When under constellations coldly bright The homeward sailors sing their way to bed On ships that motionless in harbour float. The circling harbour-lights flash green and red; And, out beyond, a steady travelling boat, Breaking the swell with slow industrious oars, At each stroke pours Pale lighted water from the lifted blade. Now in the painted houses all around Slow-darkening windows call The empty unwatched middle of the night. The tide's few inches rise without a sound. On the black promontory's windless head, The last awake, the fireflies rise and fall And tangle up their dithering skeins of light. O memory, take and keep All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home! Thick through the changing year The unexpected, rich-charged moments come, That you twixt wake and sleep In the lids of the closed eyes shall make appear. This is life's certain good, Though in the end it be not good at all When the dark end arises, And the stripped, startled spirit must let fall The amulets that could Prevail with life's but not death's sad devices. Then, like a child from whom an older child Forces its gathered treasures, Its beads and shells and strings of withered flowers, Tokens of recent pleasures, The soul must lose in eyes weeping and wild Those prints of vanished hours.

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Woman's Song

No more upon my bosom rest thee, Too often have my hands caressed thee, My lips thou knowest well, too well; Lean to my heart no more thine ear My spirit's living truth to hear — It has no more to tell. In what dark night, in what strange night, Burnt to the butt the candle's light That lit our room so long? I do not know, I thought I knew How love could be both sweet and true: I also thought it strong. Where has the flame departed? Where, Amid the empty waste of air, Is that which dwelt with us? Was it a fancy? Did we make Only a show for dead love's sake, It being so piteous? No more against my bosom press thee, Seek no more that my hands caress thee, Leave the sad lips thou hast known so well; If to my heart thou lean thine ear, There grieving thou shalt only hear Vain murmuring of an empty shell.

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The Wind

Blow harder, wind, and drive My blood from hands and face back to the heart. Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs, Carry the flying dapple of the clouds Over the grass, over the soft-grained plough, Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hair Against its usual set. Snatch at the reins in my dead hands and push me Out of my saddle, blow my labouring pony Across the track. You only drive my blood Nearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there, Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful, A numb, confusèd joy! This little world's in tumult. Far away The dim waves rise and wrestle with each other And fall down headlong on the beach. And here Quick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleys And meet their raging fellows on the hill-tops, And we are in the midst. This beating heart, enriched with the hands' blood, Stands in the midst and feels the warm joy burn In solitude and silence, while all about The gusts clamour like living, angry birds, And the gorse seems hardly tethered to the ground. Blow louder, wind, about My square-set house, rattle the windows, lift The trap-door to the loft above my head And let it fall, clapping. Yell in the trees, And throw a rotted elm-branch to the ground, Flog the dry trailers of my climbing rose — Make deep, O wind, my rest!

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A Lonely Place

The leafless trees, the untidy stack Last rainy summer raised in haste, Watch the sky turn from fair to black And watch the river fill and waste; But never a footstep comes to trouble The sea-gulls in the new-sown corn, Or pigeons rising from late stubble And flashing lighter as they turn. Or if a footstep comes, 'tis mine Sharp on the road or soft on grass: Silence divides along my line And shuts behind me as I pass. No other comes, no labourer To cut his shaggy truss of hay, Along the road no traveller, Day after day, day after day. And even I, when I come here, Move softly on, subdued and still, Lonely as death, though I can hear Men shouting on the other hill. Day after day, though no one sees, The lonely place no different seems; The trees, the stack, still images Constant in who can say whose dreams?

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