Poems

The trees are in their autumn beauty The woodland paths are dry Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine and fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count. I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. But now they drift on the still water Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build; By what lake’s edge or pool Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away? I have looked upon these brilliant creatures And now my heart is sore. All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight The first time on this shore The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old, Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. October, 1916.

This night has been so strange that it seemed As if the hair stood up on my head. From going down of the sun I have dreamed That women laughing, or timid or wild, In rustle of lace or silken stuff, Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read All I have rhymed of that monstrous thing Returned and yet unrequited love. They stood in the door and stood between My great wood lectern and the fire Till I could hear their hearts beating: One is a harlot, and one a child That never looked upon man with desire, And one, it may be, a queen. November, 1915.

I am worn out with dreams; A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams: And all day long I look Upon this lady’s beauty As though I had found in book A pictured beauty; Pleased to have filled the eyes Or the discerning ears, Delighted to be but wise: For men improve with the years. And yet and yet Is this my dream or the truth? O would that we had met When I had my burning youth; But I grow old among dreams, A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams. July 19, 1916.

Others, because you did not keep That deep sworn vow, have been friends of mine, Yet always when I look death in the face, When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, Suddenly I meet your face. October 17, 1915.

Would I could cast a sail on the water, Where many a king has gone And many a king’s daughter, And alight at the comely trees and the lawn, The playing upon pipes and the dancing, And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for a kiss. I would find by the edge of that water The collar-bone of a hare Worn thin by the lapping of water; And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare At the old bitter world where they marry in churches, And laugh, over the untroubled water, At all who marry in churches, Through the white thin bone of a hare. July 5, 1915.

There is grey in your hair. Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath When you are passing; But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing Because it was your prayer Recovered him upon the bed of death, But for your sake—that all heart’s ache have known, And given to others all heart’s ache, From meagre girlhoods putting on Burdensome beauty—but for your sake Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom, So great her portion in that peace you make By merely walking in a room. Your beauty can but leave among us Vague memories, nothing but memories. A young man when the old men are done talking Will say to an old man “tell me of that lady The poet stubborn with his passion sang us When age might well have chilled his blood.” Vague memories, nothing but memories, But in the grave all all shall be renewed. The certainty that I shall see that lady Leaning or standing or walking, In the first loveliness of womanhood And with the fervour of my youthful eyes, Has set me muttering like a fool. You were more beautiful than any one And yet your body had a flaw: Your small hands were not beautiful. I am afraid that you will run And paddle to the wrist In that mysterious, always brimming lake Where those that have obeyed the holy law Paddle and are perfect: leave unchanged The hands that I have kissed For old sake’s sake. The last stroke of midnight dies All day in the one chair From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged In rambling talk with an image of air: Vague memories, nothing but memories. November, 1915.

Five and twenty years have gone Since old William Pollexfen Laid his strong bones in death By his wife Elizabeth In the grey stone tomb he made; And after twenty years they laid In that tomb, by him and her, His son George the astrologer And masons drove from miles away To scatter the acacia spray Upon a melancholy man Who had ended where his breath began. Many a son and daughter lies Far from the customary skies, The Mall, and Eadés Grammar School, In London or in Liverpool, But where is laid the sailor John That so many lands had known, Quiet lands or unquiet seas Where the Indians trade or Japanese; He never found his rest ashore Moping for one voyage more: Where have they laid the sailor John? And yesterday the youngest son, A humorous unambitious man, Was buried near the astrologer; And are we now in the tenth year? Since he who had been contented long, A nobody in a great throng, Decided he would journey home, Now that his fiftieth year had come, And “Mr. Alfred” be again Upon the lips of common men Who carried in their memory His childhood and his family. At all these deathbeds women heard A visionary white sea bird Lamenting that a man should die, And with that cry I have raised my cry.