TO T. STURGE MOORE

THE years come on, the years go by, And in my Northern valley I, Withdrawn from life, watch life go by. But I have formed within my heart A state that does not thus depart, Richer than life, greater than being, Truer in feeling and in seeing Than outward turbulence can know; Where time is still, like a large, slow And lofty bird that moves her wings In far, invisible flutterings To gaze on every part of space Yet poise for ever in one place; Where line and sound, colour and phrase Rebuild in clear, essential ways The powers behind the veil of sense; While tragic things are made intense By passion brooding on old dread, Till a faint light of beauty shed From night-enfolded agony Shews in the ways men fail and die The deeps whose knowledge never cloys But, striking inward without voice, Stirs me to tremble and rejoice. For twenty years and more than twenty I have found my riches and my plenty In poets dead and poets living, Painters and music-men, all giving, By life shut in creative deeds, Live force and insight to my needs; And long before I came to stand And hear your voice and touch your hand In that great treasure-house new-known, Where in their tower above the Town The masters of The Dial sit, I loved in every word of it Your finely tempered verse that told me Of patient power, and still can hold me By its authentic divination Of the right knowledge of creation, Its grave, still beauty brought to day Tissue by tissue in nature's way, Petal by petal sure to shew Imagination's quiet glow That burns intenseliest at the core. And through that twenty years and more I have been envious of your reach In speaking form and plastic speech, Your double energy of hand That puts two arts at your command While I must be content with one And feel true life but half begun; So that by graver as by pen You can create earth, stars, and men, And prove yourself by more than rime A prince of poets in our time. For these delights, and the delight Of converse in a Surrey night After the deep sound had lapsed by Of ocean-haunted poetry, For counsel and another zest Added to beauty's life-long quest I, in acknowledgment, would bring The homage of an offering; And, being too poor to reach the height Of my conception or requite Your greater giving equally, I search in my capacity And, by my self-appointed trade, Find something I myself have made, That here I offer. Let it be A token betwixt you and me Of admiration and loyalty.