s: Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo.


s: Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy road-way


s: Sometimes pipes a chaffinch; loose droops the blue.


s: Cows flap a slow tail knee-deep in the river,


s: Breathless, given up to sun and gnat and fly.


s: Nowhere is she seen; and if I see her nowhere,


s: Lightning may come, straight rains and tiger sky.


s: O the golden sheaf, the rustling treasure-armful!


s: O the nutbrown tresses nodding interlaced!


s: Nodding!  O the girdle slack about the waist!


s: Slain are the poppies that shot their random scarlet


s: Quick amid the wheatears:  wound about the waist,


s: Gathered, see these brides of earth one blush of ripeness!


s: Large and smoky red the sun's cold disk drops,


s: Clipped by naked hills, on violet shaded snow:


s: Eastward large and still lights up a bower of moon-rise,


s: Whence at her leisure steps the moon aglow.


s: Nightlong on black print-branches our beech-tree


s: Gazes in this whiteness:  nightlong could I.


s: Here may life on death or death on life be painted.


s: Let me clasp her soul to know she cannot die!


s: Gossips count her faults; they scour a narrow chamber


s: Where there is no window, read not heaven or her.


s: 'When she was a tiny,' one aged woman quavers,


s: Plucks at my heart and leads me by the ear.


s: Faults she had once as she learnt to run and tumbled:


s: Faults of feature some see, beauty not complete.


s: Yet, good gossips, beauty that makes holy


s: Earth and air, may have faults from head to feet.


s: Hither she comes; she comes to me; she lingers,


s: Deepens her brown eyebrows, while in new surprise


s: High rise the lashes in wonder of a stranger;


s: Yet am I the light and living of her eyes.


s: Something friends have told her fills her heart to brimming,


s: Nets her in her blushes, and wounds her, and tames. -


s: Sure of her haven, O like a dove alighting,


s: Arms up, she dropped:  our souls were in our names.


s: Soon will she lie like a white-frost sunrise.


s: Yellow oats and brown wheat, barley pale as rye,


s: Long since your sheaves have yielded to the thresher,


s: Felt the girdle loosened, seen the tresses fly.


s: Soon will she lie like a blood-red sunset.


s: Swift with the to-morrow, green-winged Spring!


s: Sing from the South-west, bring her back the truants,


s: Nightingale and swallow, song and dipping wing.


s: Soft new beech-leaves, up to beamy April


s: Spreading bough on bough a primrose mountain, you


s: Lucid in the moon, raise lilies to the skyfields,


s: Youngest green transfused in silver shining through:


s: Fairer than the lily, than the wild white cherry:


s: Borne to me by dreams when dawn is at my eye-lids:


s: Fair as in the flesh she swims to me on tears.


s: Could I find a place to be alone with heaven,


s: I would speak my heart out:  heaven is my need.


s: Every woodland tree is flushing like the dogwood,


s: Flashing like the whitebeam, swaying like the reed.


s: Flushing like the dogwood crimson in October;


s: Streaming like the flag-reed South-west blown;


s: Flashing as in gusts the sudden-lighted whitebeam:


s: All seem to know what is for heaven alone.


s: A troop of children through an orchard gate:


s: The boughs hung low, the grass was high;


s: For fruits to fill them; fruits were all their sky.


s: They shouted, running on from tree to tree,


s: And played the game the wind plays, on and round.


s: Of laughter spouted, pattering fresh on me.


s: I could have watched them till the daylight fled,


s: Their pretty bower made such a light of day.


s: Seized on a branch and thumped down apples red.


s: The tiny creature flashing through green grass,


s: And laughing with her feet and eyes among


s: That sight I saw, and passed as aliens pass.


s: My footpath left the pleasant farms and lanes,


s: Soft cottage-smoke, straight cocks a-crow, gay flowers;


s: And met its rival tenants, rays and rains.


s: Still in my view mile-distant firs appeared,


s: When, under a patched channel-bank enriched


s: With foxglove whose late bells drooped seared,


s: Their camp, and labouring the low tent upreared.


s: Here, too, were many children, quick to scan


s: A new thing coming; swarthy cheeks, white teeth:


s: Dispersed lay broth-pot, sticks, and drinking-can.


s: Three girls, with shoulders like a boat at sea


s: Tipped sideways by the wave (their clothing slid


s: A starting-point, unfrocked to the bent knee.


s: They raced; their brothers yelled them on, and broke


s: In act to follow, but as one they snuffed


s: And rolled athwart dwarf furzes grey-blue smoke.


s: Soon on the dark edge of a ruddier gleam,


s: The mother-pot perusing, all, stretched flat,


s: And oft his nose went with the flying steam.


s: I turned and looked on heaven awhile, where now


s: The moor-faced sunset broadened with red light;


s: Earth gazes while her fingers dint the breast


s: Which is his well of strength, his home of rest,


s: That nourishment, she cannot give:  his heart


s: Involves his fate; and she who urged the start


s: Contentious with the elements, whose dower


s: First sprang him; for swift vultures to devour


s: Is warning of a creature matched with strife,


s: But peering in Earth's entrails, where the gnome


s: To grasp at weapons ere he learns their use,


s: In each new ring he bears a giant's thews,


s: Of reading what he is and whence he came,


s: Whither to go, finds wilder letters flame


s: To rend him from her, now of his mother craves


s: Seen of his dread, she is to his blank eye


s: Heavenly, but her blush, soon wearing white,


s: Veils like a gorsebush in a web of blight,


s: She still was the Implacable:  as a beast,


s: She struck him down and dragged him from the feast


s: Her revelries of ripeness, her kind smile,


s: Her songs, her peeping faces, lure awhile


s: For him, inveterately he strains to see,


s: She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need,


s: Yet scares him on the threshold with the shroud.


s: He deems her cherishing of her best-endowed


s: Firm roadway between lustfulness and pain;


s: Has half transferred the battle to his brain,


s: Or wise, but with the passion Self obscures;


s: Through that old devil of the thousand lures,


s: The greed to touch, to view, to have, to live:


s: Through all that makes of him a sensitive


s: And he the wind-whipped, anywhither wave


s: Can raise him high:  with vows of living faith


s: Some proofs of slaughtered nature; some prized few,


s: Himself, himself doth from extinction clutch,


s: By virtue of his worth, contrasting much


s: He would be snatched by Grace discovering worth.


s: By work that lights the shapeless and the dun,


s: That sing his soul in stone:  of her he draws,


s: Though blind to her, by spelling at her laws,


s: For the gold harvest-robes, the mural crown,


s: Her haggard quarry-features and thick frown


s: And decency, than which is life less dear,


s: She has of him:  the lyre of language clear,


s: With glory in his gains by work achieved:


s: With grief for grief that is the unperceived


s: Imploring storms, her essence is the spur.


s: Those are her rules which bid him wash foul sins;


s: Those her revulsions from the skull that grins


s: For happiness, for lastingness, for light.


s: 'Tis she who kindles in his haunting night


s: Daily she waves him, that his inner dream


s: May clasp amid the glooms a springing beam,


s: He would have burst the chrysalis of the blind:


s: Yet will when his distempered devil of Self; -


s: The glutton for her fruits, the wily elf


s: To what he execrates and writhes to shun; -


s: When fire has passed him vapour to the sun,


s: 'Live in thy offspring as I live in mine,'


s: And his gapped readings of the crown and sword,


s: The hell detested and the heaven adored,


s: He shall peruse, from Reason not disjoined,


s: And never unfaith clamouring to be coined


s: Not he, her creature, till his soul has yearned


s: With all her gifts to reach the light discerned


s: As in the hour that to young sunlight crows;


s: And--'If thou hast good faith it can repose,'


s: Expression, her great word of life, looks she;


s: See the sweet women, friend, that lean beneath


s: The ever-falling fountain of green leaves


s: Round the white bending stem, and like a wreath


s: Of our most blushful flower shine trembling through,


s: To teach philosophers the thirst of thieves:


s: - Fair sirs, we give you welcome, yield you place,


s: And you shall choose among us which you will,


s: To wed our cause, and its high task fulfil.


s: - Most gracious ladies, nigh when light has birth,


s: A troop of maids, brown as burnt heather-bells,


s: And rich with life as moss-roots breathe of earth


s: In the first plucking of them, past us flew


s: - Sirs, they are as unthinking armies are


s: To thoughtful leaders, and our cause is theirs.


s: When they know men they know the state of war:


s: But now they dream like sunlight on a sea,


s: And deem you hold the half of happy pairs.


s: - Ladies, I listened to a ring of dames;


s: And they denounced some insurrection new


s: Against sound laws which keep you good and pure.


s: - Sirs, they are of us, as their dress denotes,


s: And by as much:  let them together chime:


s: It is an ancient bell within their throats,


s: Pulled by an aged ringer; with what glee


s: - Sweet ladies, you with beauty, you with wit;


s: Dowered of all favours and all blessed things


s: Wherefore this vain and outworn strife renew,


s: Which stays the tide no more than eddy-rings?


s: - The manners of the market, honest sirs,


s: 'Tis hard to quit when you behold the wares.


s: You flatter us, or perchance our milliners


s: You flatter; so this vain and outworn She


s: May still be the charmed snake to your soft airs!


s: - One day, dear lady, missing the broad track,


s: And there I saw Queen Beauty hold review,


s: With Love before her throne in act to plead.


s: - Ingenious gentleman, the tale is known.


s: Love pleaded sweetly:  Beauty would not melt:


s: She would not melt:  he turned in wrath:  her throne


s: The shadow of his back froze witheringly,


s: And sobbing at his feet Queen Beauty knelt.


s: - Love, lady, like the star above that lance


s: Of radiance flung by sunset on ridged cloud,


s: Sad as the last line of a brave romance! -


s: Young Love hung dim, yet quivering round him threw


s: Beams of fresh fire, while Beauty waned and bowed.


s: - Called she not for her mirror, sir?  Forth ran


s: Her women:  I am lost, she cried, when lo,


s: And brought the faded Pagan to full blow:


s: - My version, madam, runs not to that end.


s: Caught her like fever; her just lord no friend


s: She fancied; aimed beyond beauty, and thence grew


s: The prim acerbity, sweet Love's outcast.


s: Great heaven ward off that stroke from you!


s: - Your prayer to heaven, good sir, is generous:


s: How generous likewise that you do not name


s: Couched idle underneath our showering tree,


s: May quite withhold her most destructive flame;


s: - Quite, could not be, fair lady; yet your youth


s: May run to drought in visionary schemes:


s: And a late waking to perceive the truth,


s: When day falls shrouding her supreme adieu,


s: Shows darker wastes than unaccomplished dreams:


s: - O sir, the truth, the truth! is't in the skies,


s: Or in the grass, or in this heart of ours?


s: But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes


s: That look on it! the diverse things they see,


s: According to their thirst for fruit or flowers!


s: - Lady, there is a truth of settled laws


s: That down the past burns like a great watch-fire.


s: Let youth hail changeful mornings; but your cause,


s: Whetting its edge to cut the race in two,


s: Is felony:  you forfeit the bright lyre,


s: - Sir, was it glory, was it honour, pride,


s: And not as cat and serpent and poor slave,


s: Wherewith we walked in union by your side?


s: Spare to false womanliness her delicacy,


s: Or bid true manliness give ear, we crave:


s: - Yours, madam, were the privileges of life


s: Proper to man's ideal; you were the mark


s: Of action, and the banner in the strife:


s: Yea, of your very weakness once you drew


s: The strength that sounds the wells, outflies the lark:


s: - Your friend looks thoughtful.  Sir, when we were chill,


s: You clothed us warmly; all in honour! when


s: We starved you fed us; all in honour still:


s: - You cite exceptions, madam, that are sad,


s: But come in the red struggle of our growth.


s: Is two-sexed upon earth:  this which you do,


s: - I fain would ask your friend . . . but I will ask


s: You, sir, how if in place of numbers vague,


s: Your sad exceptions were to break that mask


s: They wear for your cool mind historically,


s: And blaze like black lists of a PRESENT plague?


s: - Your spirit breathes a mist upon our world,


s: Lady, and like a rain to pierce the roof


s: And drench the bed where toil-tossed man lies curled


s: In his hard-earned oblivion!  You are few,


s: Scattered, ill-counselled, blinded:  for a proof,


s: I have lived, and have known none like you.


s: - We may be blind to men, sir:  we embrace


s: Though few, we hold a promise for the race


s: That was not at our rising:  you are free


s: To win brave mates; you lose but marionnettes.


s: - Ah! madam, were they puppets who withstood


s: Youth's cravings for adventure to preserve


s: The light which leads us from the paths of rue,


s: That light above us, never seen to swerve,


s: - Ah! sir, our worshipped posture we perchance


s: Shall not abandon, though we see not how,


s: Being to that lamp-post fixed, we may advance


s: - So push you out of harbour in small craft,


s: With little seamanship; and comes a gale,


s: The world will laugh, the world has often laughed,


s: Lady, to see how bold when skies are blue,


s: When black winds churn the deeps how panic-pale,


s: - What thinks your friend, kind sir?  We have escaped


s: But partly that old half-tamed wild beast's paw


s: Whereunder woman, the weak thing, was shaped:


s: In grim brute force, whom force of brain shall awe:


s: And yours might pluck an angel from the spheres


s: To play in this revolt whereto you are vowed,


s: O'er fields that crack for rain your friends drop tears,


s: - Is he our friend, there silent? he weeps not.


s: On a mind blank as the white wife of Lot,


s: Giving it warmth and movement! if this be


s: Who would recast us, is but to convulse:


s: You enter on a strife that frets and sours;


s: You can but win sick disappointment's hue;


s: - Thinks your friend so?  Good sir, your wit is bright;


s: But wit that strives to speak the popular voice,


s: Puts on its nightcap and puts out its light.


s: Curfew, would seem your conqueror's decree


s: To women likewise:  and we have no choice


s: - A plain safe intermediate way is cleft


s: By reason foiling passion:  you that rave


s: - This apple is not ripe, it is not sweet;


s: Nor rosy, sir, nor golden:  eye and mouth


s: Are little wooed by it; yet we would eat.


s: We are somewhat tired of Eden, is our plea.


s: We have thirsted long; this apple suits our drouth:


s: - But say, what seek you, madam?  'Tis enough


s: That you should have dominion o'er the springs


s: Domestic and man's heart:  those ways, how rough,


s: Where you walk sheltered by your angel's wings,


s: - We hear women's shrieks on them.  We like your phrase,


s: 'What seek you?' is of tyrants in all days.


s: And we will of your strength:  we ask no more.


s: To show you as the lightning night reveals,


s: Your error and your perils:  you have erred


s: Swift heels may soften; wherefore to swift heels


s: - To err in mind, sir . . . your friend smiles:  he may!


s: Men's fiction is! how like you in the plan,


s: - Look, lady, where yon river winds its line


s: Toward sunset, and receives on breast and face


s: The splendour of fair life:  to be divine,


s: Flowing with beauty, lending earth your grace,


s: - Sir, you speak well:  your friend no word vouchsafes.


s: To flow with beauty, breeding fools and worse,


s: Cowards and worse:  at such fair life she chafes,


s: Nor of your schools:  we share the primal curse;


s: - Hear, then, my friend, madam!  Tongue-restrained he stands


s: Till words are thoughts, and thoughts, like swords enriched


s: With traceries of the artificer's hands,


s: Are fire-proved steel to cut, fair flowers to view. -


s: Do I hear him?  Oh, he is bewitched, bewitched!


s: - We have won a champion, sisters, and a sage!


s: - Ladies, you win a guest to a good feast!


s: - Sir spokesman, sneers are weakness veiling rage.


s: - Of weakness, and wise men, you have the key.


s: - Then are there fresher mornings mounting East


s: - False ends as false began, madam, be sure!


s: - What lure there is the pure cause purifies!


s: - That soul which bids us our high light pursue.


s: - Some heights are measured down:  the wary wise


s: - Sir, for the friend you bring us, take our thanks.


s: Yes, Beauty was of old this barren goal;


s: A thing with claws; and brute-like in her pranks!


s: Those ladies led their captive to the flood's


s: Green edge.  He floating with them seemed the most


s: Fool-flushed old noddy ever crowned with buds.


s: Happier than I!  Then, why not wiser too?


s: For he that lives with Beauty, he may boast


s: Have women nursed some dream since Helen sailed


s: Over the sea of blood the blushing star,


s: That beauty, whom frail man as Goddess hailed,


s: When not possessing her (for such is he!),


s: And shall they make of Beauty their estate,


s: The fortress and the weapon of their sex?


s: Shall she in her frost-brilliancy dictate,


s: More queenly than of old, how we must woo,


s: Ere she will melt?  The halter's on our necks,


s: Her ancient conquests, with an aim thus high:


s: If this, if that, if more, the fight is gained.


s: But can she keep her followers without fee?


s: Warned by old contests that one museful ripple


s: Along those lips of rose with tendril hooks


s: Forebodes disturbance in the springs of pathos,


s: Perchance may change of masks midway demand,


s: Albeit the man rise mountainous as Athos,


s: For this the Comic Muse exacts of creatures


s: Appealing to the fount of tears:  that they


s: Strive never to outleap our human features,


s: In peril of the hum to laughter nighest.


s: But prove they under stress of action's fire


s: Nobleness, to that test of Reason highest,


s: She bows:  she waves them for the loftier lyre.


s: And thrilled the plumes, and stayed the clock,


s: He neighed a laugh, though moods were rough


s: 'Forefend it, heaven!' Count Louis cried,


s: Her lips were locked, her arms were crossed,


s: Her heart swung like a storm-bell tolled


s: She crushed them, high her heart outsoared,


s: - The crawling creature, called in scorn


s: The thoughts that through Archduchess Anne


s: Long sat she there, as flame that strives


s: She wrote:  'We have him half by theft.'


s: When read old Kraken:  'Christ our Guide,'


s: - Your mercy, madam, shows you stripped,


s: To heaven she vowed herself, and yearned


s: If I could kill thee! shrieked her look:


s: Worms will the faithless find their lies


s: This that killed Thee, kissed Thee, Lord!


s: Heaven will hear!--in house thy handmaid,


s: Feels 'twixt her and sharp-fanged nature


s: Meanwhile you, freaked nature's martyrs,


s: She left them to lie, like the light that has gone


s: When the South was a fervid nightingale,


s: The lords of the Court they sighed heart-sick,


s: I prize her no more than a fling o' the dice,


s: But, or shame to my manhood, a lady of ice,


s: I count her as much as a crack o' my thumb,


s: But, or shame of my manhood, to me she shall come


s: A shudder of blood at the crackle of steel


s: It ceased, and she thought of whom was need,


s: When lo, stood her tirewoman breathless by:


s: Lord Dusiote hung on his good squire's arm,


s: Of you 'tis whispered that love has power


s: I have silenced the slanderers, peace to their souls!


s: She flew in the folds of a marvel of love


s: And take of your right for love like this,


s: Lord Dusiote sprang from priest and squire;


s: He knew not the force that pushed him back


s: Like a drowned man's length on the strong flood-tide,


s: He fled from his lady whom he might claim


s: As ghost, and who made the daybeams flame


s: There was grief at Court for one so gay,


s: For training the vine than at vintage-press;


s: Till his traitorous doing seemed clearer to burn,


s: And the lady beloved drew his heart for return,


s: He neared the palace, he spied the Court,


s: The masque and the dance were cloud on wave,


s: Do you take a new husband to-morrow, lady?


s: Must the first yield place to the second, he sighed.


s: Her eyes were like the grave that is wide


s: And as justly the second should follow the first,


s: The light leaves prattled to neighbour ears;


s: The bird of the passion sang over his tears;


s: For a forward foot and a tongue of fire:


s: So thought Lord Dusiote's trusty squire,


s: The song of the bird was wine in his blood,


s: Within him to mingle the bloom and bird,


s: Beside him strangely a piece of the dark


s: Of a priest in prayer, like a cavernous wave,


s: No priest was hired for the play this night:


s: Where cresset-lamps in a door were raised,


s: All cloaked and masked, with naked blades,


s: The lords of the Court, from the palace-door,


s: They marched the body to squire and priest,


s: 'Tis a year and a day since in this place


s: To the Love we honour, the Love her due,


s: A trap for the sweet tooth, lures for the light,


s: Right well!  But not in the South, princess,


s: When the South had voice of a nightingale


s: On the heights of Love walked radiant peers;


s: The bird of the passion sang over his tears


s: Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank:


s: Pricked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reach


s: Smoking flesh the thresher washed down fast,


s: Matching Harald's in his deeds of strength;


s: Half a winter night the toasts hurrahed,


s: Crowned him, clothed him, trumpeted him high,


s: Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk,


s: Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead;


s: Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked


s: They decreed him:  hailed the kingling:  ha!


s: King they hailed a branchlet, shaped to fare,


s: Weighted so, like quaking shingle spume,


s: Still he heard, and doglike, hoglike, ran


s: Nose of hearing till his blind sight saw:


s: Woman, man, they mouthed; they spake a thing


s: Doglike, hoglike, horselike now he raced,


s: Smell of brine his nostrils filled with might:


s: Nostrils quickened eyelids, eyelids hand:


s: Sitting did he breathe against the blade,


s: Standing kiss it for that proof of life:


s: Her he eyed:  his judgement was one word,


s: Foulbed! and she fell:  the blow clove two.


s: Morning danced along the waves to beach;


s: Split to yield a limb by stress of heat,


s: Gracefullest leaper, the dappled fox-cub


s: Curves over brambles with berries and buds,


s: Light as a bubble that flies from the tub,


s: Whisked by the laundry-wife out of her suds.


s: Elegant, fashioned to foot with the deuce;


s: Nature's own prince of the dance:  then he sees


s: Cub-hunting troops were abroad, and a yelp


s: Told of sure scent:  ere the stroke upon noon


s: Reynard the younger lay far beyond help.


s: Wild, my poor friend, has the fate to be chased;


s: Civil will conquer:  were 't other 'twere worse;


s: Fair, by the flushed early morning embraced,


s: He mouthed of thoughts that grilled beneath,


s: Such bladders; in their shapes confessed


s: Forgetting . . .?  O the horn! the horn!


s: Gript in flight:  strange knots that sped


s: Plucked his thin beard, laughed disdain.


s: Who? for the great king turned as though


s: Wrath to the shaft's head strained the bow.


s: Fallen from his hand the Scourge he shook.


s: Ribs like those?  Who else!  They glared


s: Thirst for light to lay their thwacks on


s: - You shall lodge him, feed him, wive him,


s: - You shall yield us land and daughters:


s: Stags, they butted; bulls, they bellowed;


s: Claimed of Power their dues, and granted


s: The heavens, and deep the earth, till thou


s: How died Melissa none dares shape in words.


s: Her son, because his brows were black of her,


s: And Corinth frowns on them that feed the cur.


s: There is no Corinth save the whip and curb


s: Up on his marble fortress-tower he sits,


s: The city under him:  a white yoked steer,


s: That bears his heart for pulse, his head for wits.


s: Bloom of the generous fires of his fair Spring


s: Still coloured him when men forbore to sting;


s: Of his good sovereignty showed gardens trim;


s: And owning that the hoe he struck at weeds


s: Was author of the flowers raised face to him.


s: To yield him music with scarce touch of stops.


s: He breathed, it piped; he moved, it rose to fly:


s: At whiles a bloodhorse racing till it drops;


s: At whiles a crouching dog, on him all eye.


s: That rebel with his mother in his brows,


s: Pirene!  Little heed where he might house


s: The prince gave, hearing:  so the fox, the owl!


s: To prove the Gods benignant to his rule,


s: The years, which fasten rigid whom they cool,


s: Reviewing, saw him hold the seat of power.


s: A grey one asked:  Who next? nor answer had:


s: For which of his male issue promised grip


s: To stride yon people, with the curb and whip?


s: This Lycophron! he sole, the father like,


s: Fired prospect of a line in one strong tide,


s: By right of mastery; stern will to strike;


s: Pride to support the stroke:  yea, Godlike pride!


s: Himself the prince beheld a failing fount.


s: His line stretched back unto its holy mount:


s: The thirsty onward waved for him no sign.


s: Then stood before his vision that hard son.


s: The youth was tossing pebbles in the sea;


s: Perforce of the harsh edict for who dared


s: Address him outcast.  Naming it, he crossed


s: His father's look with look that proved them paired


s: For stiffness, and another pebble tossed.


s: He passed from sight, from the hushed mouths of all.


s: Against a coast where sapphire shattered white,


s: The seasons rolled like troops of billows blown


s: To spraymist.  The prince gazed on capping night.


s: Deaf Age spake in his ear with shouts:  Thy son!


s: Deep from his heart Life raved of work not done.


s: As of the prince in whom the race had pause;


s: And him he hated loved he for the cause.


s: But young Periander, from the shadow cleared,


s: That haunted his rebellious brows.  The prince


s: Grew bright for him; saw youth, if seeming loth,


s: Return:  and of pure pardon to convince,


s: Despatched the messenger most dear with both.


s: His daughter, from the exile's Island home,


s: Wrote, as a flight of halcyons o'er the foam,


s: Sweet words:  her brother to his father bowed;


s: Accepted his peace-offering, and rejoiced.


s: To bring him back a prince the father vowed,


s: Commanded man the oars, the white sails hoist.


s: He waved the fleet to strain its westward way


s: On to the sea-hued hills that crown the bay:


s: Whom now his heart, for honour to his blood,


s: Thanked.  They should learn what boons a prince confers


s: In watch upon the offing, worn with haste


s: To see his youth revived, and, close embraced,


s: Pardon who had subdued him, who had gained


s: Since Titan pierced by young Apollo stained


s: Earth's breast, the prince looked forth, himself looked through.


s: Errors aforetime unperceived were bared,


s: Of States and people fretting at his yoke.


s: And lo, the fleet brown-flocked on the sea-verge!


s: Oars pulled:  they streamed in harbour; without cheer


s: For welcome shadowed round the heaving bier.


s: They, whose approach in such rare pomp and stress


s: Found Lycophron this breathless, this lone-laid.


s: Who smote the man thrown open to young joy?


s: Came forth from his unwary breast in wreaths,


s: With eyes.  And shall a woman, that extinct,


s: Smite out of dust the Powerful who breathes?


s: Her loved the son; her served; they lay close-linked!


s: Dead was he, and demanding earth.  Demand


s: Sharper for vengeance of an instant hand,


s: And raged a plague; to prove on free Hellenes


s: How prompt the Tyrant for the Persian dye;


s: How black his Gods behind their marble screens.


s: The Tyrant passed, and friendlier was his eye


s: On the great man of Athens, whom for foe


s: That broke as waters round a galley's flow,


s: Bubbles at prow and foam along the wake.


s: Beneath an adverse wind still stripping bare,


s: His kinsman, of the light-in-cavern look,


s: From thought drew, and a countenance could wear


s: Not less at peace than fields in Attic air


s: Shorn, and shown fruitful by the reaper's hook.


s: To deem of minds of men they grow! these sheep,


s: By fits wild horses, need the crook and rein;


s: Hot bulls by fits, pure wisdom hold they cheap,


s: For ones and twos and threes thy words are good;


s: For thine own government are pillars:  mine


s: Stand acts to fit the herd; which has quick thirst,


s: On polished brass, and, worthy of the Nine,


s: In showering columns from their fountain burst.


s: Thus museful rode the Tyrant, princely plumed,


s: And Solon, blank beside his rule, resumed


s: He little loved the man, his office less,


s: Therefore the heavier curse on Athens he!


s: The people grew not in themselves, but, blind,


s: Accepted sight from him, to him resigned


s: Their hopes of stature, rootless as at sea.


s: As under sea lay Solon's work, or seemed


s: By turbid shore-waves beaten day by day;


s: Defaced, half formless, like an image dreamed,


s: Appears, by strangers' hands to home returned.


s: But shall the Present tyrannize us? earned


s: It was in some way, justly says the sage.


s: One sees not how, while husbanding regrets;


s: While tossing scorn abroad from righteous rage,


s: High vision is obscured; for this is age


s: When robbed--more infant than the babe it frets!


s: Yet see Athenians treading the black path


s: To wait his pleasure, shivering at his wrath:


s: With offer of the all that renders bright:


s: Forgetful of the growth of men to light,


s: As creatures reared on Persian milk they bow.


s: Unripe! unripe!  The times are overcast.


s: But still may they who sowed behind the plough


s: To make the plagues afflicting us things past.


s: Maimed, beggared, grey; seeking an alms; with nod


s: Of palsy doing task of thanks for bread;


s: He whom the Gods have struck bends low his head.


s: Weak words he has, that slip the nerveless tongue


s: Deformed, like his great frame:  a broken arc:


s: Right at the centre breastplate of his mark.


s: Oft pausing on his white-eyed inward look,


s: Cut from the source that in the upland swells.


s: The cottagers who dole him fruit and crust


s: With patient inattention hear him prate:


s: Comes the old wanderer, more bent of late.


s: Spinning a knotted thread the livelong day.


s: He cannot, nor do they, the tale connect;


s: Spurned of the hoof that sprang the Hippocrene.


s: Albeit a theme of flame to bring them straight


s: The snorting white-winged brother of the wave,


s: As men that spied the wings, that heard the snort,


s: Their sires have told; and of a martial prince


s: Speaks of a monster slain by one long since.


s: By Goddess given to tame the lightning steed:


s: He rose like the loosed fountain's utmost leap;


s: He played the star at span of heaven right o'er


s: Saw the winged shoulders:  him they saw not more.


s: He fell:  and says the shattered man, I fell:


s: And sweeps an arm the height an eagle wins;


s: Heaves the worn patches of his coat of skins.


s: Lo, this is he in whom the surgent springs


s: Show but a pool of scum for shooting flies.


s: At the coming up of Phoebus the all-luminous charioteer,


s: Double-visaged stand the mountains in imperial multitudes,


s: And with shadows dappled men sing to him, Hail, O Beneficent!


s: Never pearl from ocean-hollows by the diver exultingly,


s: In his breathlessness, above thrust, is as earth to Helios.


s: Rule of day this day surrenders as a thing hereditary,


s: Having sworn by Styx tremendous, for the proof of his parentage,


s: He would grant his son's petition, whatsoever the sign thereof.


s: Give me place that men may see me how I blaze, and transcendingly


s: Choked prophetic:  'O half mortal!' he exclaimed in an agony,


s: Cannot other gifts my godhead shed upon thee? miraculous


s: As a God to sway to concord hearts of men, reconciling them;


s: And the golden notes, like medicine, darting straight to the


s: Fill them up, till hearts of men bound as the billows, the ships


s: Thus intently urged the Sun-God; but the force of his eloquence


s: Was the pressing on of sea-waves scattered broad from the rocks


s: What shall move a soul from madness?  Lost, lost in delirium,


s: Rock-fast, the adolescent to his father, irreverent,


s: Quivering in his loins parental, on the boy's beaming countenance


s: To abandon his mad hunger, and avert the calamity.


s: That the taunts I hear be silenced:  I am stung with their


s: Only, Thou, my Father, Thou tell how aloft the revolving wheels,


s: How aloft the cleaving horse-crests I may guide peremptorily,


s: Till I drink the shadows, fire-hot, like a flower celestial,


s: And my fellows see me curbing the fierce steeds, the dear dew-


s: All the end foreseeing, Phoebus to his oath irrevocable


s: Then the flame-outsnorting horses were led forth:  it was so


s: They were yoked before the glad youth by his sister-ancillaries.


s: Swift the ripple ripples follow'd, as of aureate Helicon,


s: Down their flanks, while they impatient pawed desire of the


s: And the bit with fury champed.  Oh! unimaginable delight!


s: Unimagined speed and splendour in the circle of upper air!


s: Glory grander than the armed host upon earth singing victory!


s: Chafed the youth with their spirit surcharged, as when blossom is


s: Marked that labour by his sister Phaethontiades finished, quick


s: Seeing whom, and what a day dawned, stood the God, as in harvest


s: 'Not to any of you was this gift granted ever in annals of men;


s: I alone what only Gods can, I alone am governing day!'


s: Short the triumph, brief his rapture:  see a hurricane suddenly


s: At the leap on yielding ether, in despite of his reprimand,


s: Pitifully for mastery striving in ascension, the charioteer,


s: Reminiscent, drifts of counsel caught confused in his arid wits;


s: The reins stiff ahind his shoulder madly pulled for the mastery,


s: Fled the dream that he of mortals rode mischances predominant;


s: And he cried, 'Had I petitioned for a cup of chill aconite,


s: My descent to awful Hades had been soft, for now must I go


s: With the curse by father Zeus cast on ambition immoderate.


s: Oh, my sisters!  Thou, my Goddess, in whose love I was enviable,


s: Celebration had from me, me the most splendidly privileged!


s: Never more shall I thy temple fill with incenses bewildering;


s: Not again hear thy half-murmurs--I am lost!--never, never more.


s: I am wrecked on seas of air, hurled to my death in a vessel of


s: Hither, sisters!  Father, save me!  Hither, succour me, Cypria!'


s: Now a wail of men to Zeus rang:  from Olympus the Thunderer


s: Saw the rage of the havoc wide-mouthed, the bright car


s: Over Asia, Africa, low down; ruin flaming over the vales;


s: Light disastrous rising savage out of smoke inveterately;


s: Beast-black, conflagration like a menacing shadow move


s: With voracious roaring southward, where aslant, insufferable,


s: The bright steeds careered their parched way down an arc of the


s: For the day grew like to thick night, and the orb was its beacon-


s: Lo, the shape of one who raced there to outstrip the legitimate


s: Light of days of happy pipings by the mead-singing rivulets!


s: Lo, lo, increasing lustre, torrid breath to the nostrils; lo,


s: Torrid brilliancies thro' the vapours lighten swifter, penetrate


s: Fasten merciless, ruminant, hueless, on earth's frame crackling


s: He aloft, the frenzied driver, in the glow of the universe,


s: Like the paling of the dawn-star withers visibly, he aloft:


s: Bitter fury in his aspect, bitter death in the heart of him.


s: Crouch the herds, contract the reptiles, crouch the lions under


s: White as metal in the furnace are the faces of human-kind:


s: O'er the silken-shining pastures of the continents and the isles;


s: Lither, noisy in the breezes now his sisters shivering weep,


s: By the river flowing smooth out to the vexed sea of Adria,


s: Where he fell, and where they suffered sudden change to the


s: Ever-wailful trees bemoaning him, a bruised purple cyclamen.


s: Speeding their seed as the breeze may rule,


s: Flowers of the thistle loosen the thread.


s: Slack from the fir-tree youngly climbed;


s: Narrows the world to my neighbour's gate;


s: Silvering bush-mounds, blue brushing sward;


s: Slow runs the hour, swift flits the ray.


s: Nigh to the tangle where wings are sealed,


s: All is adroop on the down and the weald.


s: Mists more lone for the sheep-bell enwrap


s: Flame dies cold, like the rose late born.


s: Sown, reaped, harvested grain for the mills,


s: Thou hast the light over shadow of cloud.


s: Them that have served her in them that can read,


s: Glassing, where under the surface she burns,


s: Quick at her wheel, while the fuel, decay,


s: Know you the breast of the springing To-be.


s: The young green leaflet's harrier, sworn


s: All the wind's wolves through woods are loose,


s: Is the land ship? we are rolled, we drive


s: It peeps, it becks; 'tis day, 'tis night.


s: The swathe is closed, like shroud on corse.


s: Lock-mouthed, a match in lungs and thews


s: Whence pluck they brain, her prize of gifts,


s: That scaled the mount, uphurled the rock,


s: The wings, the smiles:  they flew the breast,


s: Their standards led for earth, none guessed


s: And there were groups where silvery springs


s: When the ranked clouds were downy waves,


s: Dispieced, undraped, dissolved to threads;


s: Their God to lead the glittering throng:


s: Where soon will sprout the thorns and bines.


s: And budded beech with dry leaves curled,


s: Then Earth her sweet unscented breathes,


s: The vessel splits, the Thought survives.


s: Their close.  Meanwhile, O twilight bird


s: They scorned the ventral dream of peace,


s: She smites with pangs of worse than brute.


s: She, judged of shrinking nerves, appears


s: In blackness for her daughter snatched below.


s: Smoke-pillar or loose hillock was the sand,


s: Where soil had been to clasp warm seed and throw


s: The wheat, vine, olive, ripe to Summer's ray.


s: Now whether night advancing, whether day,


s: Stood shrunken; Youth and Age appeared as one;


s: Like Winter Summer; good as labour sloth;


s: Nor was there answer wherefore beamed the sun,


s: Or why men drew the breath to carry pain.


s: High reared the ploughshare, broken lay the wain,


s: Unridered:  starving lords were wasp and moth.


s: Lean grassblades losing green on their bent flags,


s: Sang chilly to themselves; lone honey-bees


s: Pursued the flowers that were not with dry bags;


s: Sole sound aloud the snap of sapless trees,


s: More sharp than slingstones on hard breastplates hurled.


s: Back to first chaos tumbled the stopped world,


s: A nature of gaunt ribs, an earth of crags.


s: No smile Demeter cast:  the gloom she saw,


s: Well draped her direful musing; for in gloom,


s: In thicker gloom, deep down the cavern-maw,


s: Her sweet had vanished; liker unto whom,


s: And whose pale place of habitation mute,


s: She and all seemed where Seasons, pledged for fruit


s: Where hand of man was as a plucked fowl's claw.


s: That ere the ravished hour for richness heaved.


s: Beside her eyed the once red-cheeked, green-leaved.


s: It looked as if the Deluge had withdrawn.


s: Pity caught at her throat; her jests were gone.


s: She could for this waste home have piped the wail.


s: To waken laughter from cold stones, beheld


s: A riven wheatfield cracking for the wet,


s: And seed like infant's teeth, that never swelled,


s: Teeth of the giants marked she where thin ground


s: Against the hand here slack as rotted net.


s: So pinched and wizened; with their aged grin,


s: For lack of warmth to smile on mouths of woe,


s: Young, old, alike half-bent to make the hoop.


s: Their tongues of birds they wagged, weak-voiced as when


s: In grasp, past peeking:  cry before the croak.


s: Relentlessly their gold-haired Heaven, their fount


s: Bountiful of old days, heard them recount


s: Nor eye nor ear had she for piteous men.


s: A figure of black rock by sunbeams crowned


s: Through stormclouds, where the volumed shades enfold


s: An earth in awe before the claps resound


s: And woods and dwellings are as billows rolled,


s: Death from the looks that wandered with the dead


s: In famine for her lost, her lost unfound.


s: Iambe from her Mistress tripped; she raised


s: The cattle-call above the moan of prayer;


s: And slowly out of fields their fancy grazed,


s: Among the droves, defiled a horse and mare:


s: The wrecks of horse and mare:  such ribs as view


s: Seas that have struck brave ships ashore, while through


s: Howbeit the season of the dancing blood,


s: Forgot was horse of mare, yea, mare of horse:


s: Reversed, each head at either's flank, they stood.


s: Laid hand on them, and smacked; and her touch pricked.


s: Neighing within, at either's flank they licked;


s: Her hands held out like bearers of the flame,


s: Keen at her Mistress glanced Iambe:  rays


s: Her lips were opened wide; the curse was rent.


s: She laughed:  since our first harvesting heard none


s: Like thunder of the song of heart:  her face,


s: The dreadful darkness, shook to mounted sun,


s: And peal on peal across the hills held chase.


s: She laughed herself to water; laughed to fire;


s: Laughed the torrential laugh of dam and sire


s: Her laughter, Gods! was flesh on skeleton.


s: The valley people huddled, broke, afraid,


s: Assured, and taking lightning in the veins,


s: They puffed, they leaped, linked hands, together swayed,


s: Of tears in laughter, laughter weeping, smote


s: Knowledge of milky mercy from that throat


s: And one bold youth set mouth at a shy maid.


s: Inspire the valley people, still on seas,


s: Like poplar-tops relieved from stress of gusts,


s: With rapture in their wonderment; but these,


s: Low homage being rendered, ran to plough,


s: Soon drove they through the yielding furrow-crusts.


s: Uprose the blade in green, the leaf in red,


s: O Laughter! beauty plumped and love had birth.


s: Laughter!  O thou reviver of sick Earth!


s: For body, thou! to both art wine and bread!


s: The shepherd, with his eye on hazy South,


s: But promise is there none for Susan's drouth,


s: That he will come, who keeps in dry delay.


s: The freshest of the village three years gone,


s: She hangs as the white field-rose hangs short-lived;


s: Rain!  O the glad refresher of the grain!


s: And welcome waterspouts, had we sweet rain!


s: Ah, what is Marriage, says each pouting maid,


s: When she who wedded with the soldier hides


s: At home as good as widowed in the shade,


s: A lighthouse to the girls that would be brides:


s: To dream of dancing, but must hang and moan,


s: They have not known; they are not in the stream;


s: Light as the flying seed-ball is their play,


s: The silly maids! and happy souls they seem;


s: Yet Grief would not change fates with such as they.


s: They have not struck the roots which meet the fires


s: Beneath, and bind us fast with Earth, to know


s: Now, shepherd, see thy word, where without shower


s: A borderless low blotting Westward spreads.


s: The hall-clock holds the valley on the hour;


s: The dead leaf trips, the tree-top swings, the floor


s: Of dust whirls, dropping lumped:  near thunder speaks,


s: Rain!  O the glad refresher of the grain!


s: And welcome waterspouts of blessed rain!


s: Through night, with bedroom window wide for air,


s: Lay Susan tranced to hear all heaven descend:


s: And gurgling voices came of Earth, and rare,


s: Past flowerful, breathings, deeper than life's end,


s: From her heaved breast of sacred common mould;


s: Whereby this lone-laid wife was moved to feel


s: At morn she stood to live for ear and sight,


s: Love sky or cloud, or rose or grasses drenched.


s: A lureful devil, that in glow-worm light


s: Set languor writhing all its folds, she quenched.


s: But she would muse when neighbours praised her face,


s: Her services, and staunchness to her mate:


s: Thrice beauteous is our sunshine after rain!


s: And we drop like the fruits of the tree,


s: That had little of life save its weight:


s: Winning scents from unnumbered new births,


s: Pointed buds, where the woods were browned


s: Grief heard them, and passed like a bier.


s: And their song broadened out to the cheer


s: And sweet was her voice with the tongue,


s: Through her Normandy, down where the mills


s: Grief heard them, and stepped her way on.


s: They piped her young Earth's Bacchic rout;


s: Shall climb, cap his branches, and show,


s: When of old they broke rounding yon spine:


s: To pour forth their tune-footed throngs;


s: Through the maze, the mesh, and the wreck,


s: And, chatter, hop, skip, they were sent,


s: And the Questions that sow not nor spin,


s: Weep, bleed, rave, writhe, be distraught,


s: She yields not for prayers at her knees;


s: With a love that no scourge shall abate,


s: Issues Earth's dearest daughter, the firm


s: Though Folly froth round, hiss and hoot,


s: With the tortures of thought in the throes,


s: But the Questions, the broods that haunt


s: Earth whispers:  'they scarce have the thirst,


s: With the flesh, with the Fates, enringed.


s: With the hopes of my offspring enscrolled!


s: Where my darling, with side-glance demure,


s: For these with their ways were her feast;


s: Till the ground underneath looked a gash,


s: And her rogue grew the round of a chough.


s: Up the spruce, quick as eye, trailing brush.


s: All as well as the snail-tapping thrush.


s: With the face, the dear life for me, fled.


s: And tap-tapped the shell hard on a stone.


s: With Life and Death I walked when Love appeared,


s: And made them on each side a shadow seem.


s: Through wooded vales the land of dawn we neared,


s: Where down smooth rapids whirls the helmless dream


s: To fall on daylight; and night puts away


s: In that grey veil green grassblades brushed we by;


s: We came where woods breathed sharp, and overhead


s: Rocks raised clear horns on a transforming sky:


s: Around, save for those shapes, with him who led


s: And linked them, desert varied by no sign


s: By this the dark-winged planet, raying wide,


s: From the mild pearl-glow to the rose upborne,


s: Drew in his fires, less faint than far descried,


s: Pure-fronted on a stronger wave of morn:


s: And those two shapes the splendour interweaved,


s: Love took my hand when hidden stood the sun


s: To fling his robe on shoulder-heights of snow.


s: Then said:  There lie they, Life and Death in one.


s: It is thy craving self that thou dost see,


s: From his quick beating pulse a pathway spy?


s: Or learn the secret of the shrouded death,


s: Cleave thou thy way with fathering desire


s: Look now where Colour, the soul's bridegroom, makes


s: The house of heaven splendid for the bride.


s: In knotting arms, yet boundless:  him beside,


s: She holds the flower to heaven, and by his power


s: And sovereignty in spaciousness; he leads


s: Through widening chambers of surprise to where


s: Throbs rapture near an end that aye recedes,


s: Death begs of Life his blush; Life Death persuades


s: To keep long day with his caresses graced.


s: He is the heart of light, the wing of shades,


s: The crown of beauty:  never soul embraced


s: O bloom of dawn, breathed up from the gold sheaf


s: Held springing beneath Orient! that dost hang


s: The space of dewdrops running over leaf;


s: But love remembers how the sky was green,


s: And how the grasses glimmered lightest blue;


s: How saint-like grey took fervour:  how the screen


s: Of cloud grew violet; how thy moment came


s: Break wave round thy white feet above the gloom;


s: Lay finger on thy star; thy raiment line


s: With cherub wing and limb; wed thy soft bloom,


s: Gold-quivering like sunrays in thistle-down,


s: They do not look through love to look on thee,


s: Grave heavenliness! nor know they joy of sight,


s: Who deem the wave of rapt desire must be


s: This way have men come out of brutishness


s: To spell the letters of the sky and read


s: With thee, O fount of the Untimed! to lead,


s: Drink they of thee, thee eyeing, they unaged


s: More gardens will they win than any lost;


s: The vile plucked out of them, the unlovely slain.


s: Not forfeiting the beast with which they are crossed,


s: To stature of the Gods will they attain.


s: They shall uplift their Earth to meet her Lord,


s: The song had ceased; my vision with the song.


s: Then of those Shadows, which one made descent


s: Beside me I knew not:  but Life ere long


s: Eyes deeper than of old:  Death met I too,


s: If life comes there to grain from grass,


s: Prolong it, and in ruthlessness they smite


s: The beating heart behind the ball of sight:


s: Those lights they raise but sparkles frore,


s: And Earth, our blood-warm Earth, a shuddering prey


s: Yet space is given for breath of thought


s: 'Tis Earth's, her gift; else have we nought:


s: Appeal the lustrous people of the night.


s: Fronting yon shoreless, sown with fiery sails,


s: Flesh by its craven thirsts and fears distraught.


s: The binder of his sheaves, the sane, the right:


s: To feel it large of the great life they hold:


s: The issues known in us, our unsolved solved:


s: That there with toil Life climbs the self-same Tree,


s: Whose roots enrichment have from ripeness dropped.


s: So may we read and little find them cold:


s: Our eyes; no branch of Reason's growing lopped;


s: By day to penetrate black midnight; see,


s: Hear, feel, outside the senses; even that we,


s: The specks of dust upon a mound of mould,


s: We who reflect those rays, though low our place,


s: So may we read, and little find them cold:


s: Not distant aliens, not senseless Powers.


s: The fire is in them whereof we are born;


s: Spirit shall deem them beckoning Earth and voiced


s: She wears no more that robe of printed hours;


s: Half strange seems Earth, and sweeter than her flowers.


s: We spend our lives in learning pilotage,


s: And grow good steersmen when the vessel's crank!


s: Gap-toothed he spake, and with a tottering shank


s: It is the sentence which completes that stage;


s: The seniors of the race, on their last plank,


s: Pass mumbling it as nature's final page.


s: These, bent by such experience, are the band


s: Who captain young enthusiasts to maintain


s: What things we view, and Earth's decree withstand,


s: Lest dreaded Change, long dammed by dull decay,


s: Should bring the world a vessel steered by brain,


s: Earth loves her young:  a preference manifest:


s: She prompts them to her fruits and flower-beds;


s: Their beauty with her choicest interthreads,


s: And makes her revel of their merry zest;


s: As in our East much were it in our West,


s: If men had risen to do the work of heads.


s: Her gabbling grey she eyes askant, nor treads


s: The ways they walk; by what they speak oppressed.


s: How wrought they in their zenith?  'Tis not writ;


s: Not all; yet she by one sure sign can read:


s: Have they but held her laws and nature dear,


s: More prizes she her beasts than this high breed


s: Wry in the shape she wastes her milk to rear.


s: Lion, wolf, vulture, fox, jackal and ape,


s: The strong of limb, the keen of nose, we find,


s: Who, with some jars in harmony, combined,


s: Their primal instincts taming, to escape


s: The brawl indecent, and hot passions drape.


s: Convenience pricked conscience, that the mind.


s: Thus entered they the field of milder beasts,


s: Which in some sort of civil order graze,


s: But are they still for their old ravenous feasts,


s: Earth gives the edifice they build no base:


s: They spring another flood of fangs and claws.


s: Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive


s: Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.


s: It is a night to make the heavens our home


s: More than the nest whereto apace we strive.


s: Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,


s: In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.


s: They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:


s: The living throb in me, the dead revive.


s: Yon mantle clothes us:  there, past mortal breath,


s: Life glistens on the river of the death.


s: It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,


s: Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs


s: And this is the soul's haven to have felt.


s: The wind that blows is the wind that's best,


s: But comes a breeze, all you are on waves,


s: Strike match and light your pipe in your hat,


s: She'll take, to please her dame and dad,


s: She'll learn to think o' the marching lad


s: And bless your wits, it haunts him in sleep,


s: You'd wish for them when pitching your tent


s: It'll here a kick, and it's there a kiss,


s: With winds along the strings; she heard,


s: A good knee's height, they say, she sprang;


s: They jeered, they wondered, and they praised.


s: The fields, and o'er the hills were lost,


s: And much their legs were seized with rage


s: 'Twas known when they their camping left,


s: When they bobbed up their Lord to praise,


s: And hold the tongue from hindering peace;


s: The Squire had been the Bishop's friend:


s: And out and out, and through and through,


s: The head of Jane, like flickering light,


s: Unless pinched hard by dreams in fright.


s: May those who ply the tongue that cheats,


s: Her shadow on the Sage's path; he found,


s: By common signs, that she had done a theft.


s: He could have made the sovereign heights resound


s: With questions of the wherefore of her state:


s: Intent.  And was it man, or was it mate,


s: That she disdained? or was there haply more?


s: The dimple, as you see smooth lakes at eve


s: Spread melting rings where late a swallow dipped.


s: She had the step of the unconquered, brave,


s: Waved liberty, no challenge did it wave.


s: Her eyes were the sweet world desired of souls,


s: With something of a wavering line unspelt.


s: They hold the look whose tenderness condoles


s: For what the sister in the look has dealt


s: As when in a dropped viol the wood-throb moans


s: Among the sobbing strings, that plain and chide


s: Like infants for themselves, less deep to thrill


s: Than those rich mother-notes for them breathed round.


s: To strike love's wound, but of love's wound give sound,


s: Conveying it; the yearnings, pains and dreams.


s: They waft to the moist tropics after storm,


s: When out of passion spent thick incense steams,


s: Was never hand on brush or lyre to paint


s: Her gracious manners, where the nuptial ring


s: The reed-blade with the breeze thereof may sing.


s: With such endowments armed was she and decked


s: To make her spoken thoughts eclipse her kind;


s: It clenched the tiny fist, it curled the toe;


s: Cherubic laughed, enticed, dispensed, absorbed;


s: A Sage's match and mate, more heavenly orbed.


s: Across his path the spouseless Lady cast


s: Her shadow, and the man that thing became.


s: His youth uprising called his age the Past.


s: This was the strong grey head of laurelled name,


s: Mistook for light of morn the light which sank.


s: But who while veins run blood shall know the page


s: Comes Beauty with her tale of moon and cloud,


s: Her silvered rims of mystery pointing in


s: Where beats her secret life, grey heads will spin


s: Quick as the young, and spell those hieroglyphs


s: They drink a cup to whirl on dizzier cliffs


s: For their shamed fall, which asks, why was she sent!


s: Why, and of whom, and whence; and tell they truth,


s: Hard likeness to the toilful apes of youth


s: He bore at times, and tempted the sly smile;


s: And not on her soft lips was it descried.


s: Nor sign that Beauty fed her worm of pride,


s: By tossing victim to the courtier knave,


s: Let peep, nor of the naughty pride gave sign.


s: Rather 'twas humbleness in being pursued,


s: Had he not wits to pierce the mask he wooed?


s: All wisdom's armoury this man could wield;


s: Traverse her woman's curtain and poor shield,


s: Showing her shrineless, not a temple, bare;


s: A curtain ripped to tatters by the blast;


s: Yet she most surely to this man stood fair:


s: He worshipped like the young enthusiast,


s: Right through, and with the voice she held reserved


s: Compassion for the man thus noble nerved


s: At least, be worthy.  That our soul may swim,


s: We sink our heart down bubbling under wave.


s: It bubbles till it drops among the wrecks.


s: But, ah! confession of a woman's breast:


s: Truth speaks, and takes the spots of the confessed,


s: To veil them.  None of women, save their vile,


s: How shall a cause to Nature be appealed,


s: When, under pressure of their common foe,


s: Above the fiction, built for him, o'erthrown?


s: Must they be, though not Reason's light shall wane


s: Behind the fiction torturing to sustain;


s: Who hear her in the milk, and sometimes make


s: A tongueless answer, shivered on a sigh:


s: Whereat men dread their lofty structure's quake


s: Once more, and in their hosts for tocsin ply


s: For injured majesty.  That sigh of dames


s: Is rare and soon suppressed.  Not they combine


s: To shake the structure sheltering them, which tames


s: Their lustier if not wilder:  fixed are they,


s: And do they breathe, it is not to betray


s: Yet here and there along the graceful row


s: Is one who fetches breath from deeps, who deems,


s: Moved by a desperate craving, their old foe


s: May yield a trustier friend than woman seems,


s: And aid to bear the sculptured floral weight


s: She turned to him, and, This you seek is gone;


s: Look in, she said, as pants the furnace, brief,


s: Frost-white.  She gave his hearing sight to view


s: The silent chamber of a brown curled leaf:


s: Thing that had throbbed ere shot black lightning through.


s: No further sign of heart could he discern:


s: The picture of her speech was winter sky;


s: Where tears once at the overflow were dry.


s: So spake she her first utterance on the rack.


s: It softened torment, in the funeral hues


s: Round wan Romance at ebb, but drove her back


s: Harshly as Love's imperial cause allowed.


s: She meant to grovel, and her lover praised


s: That she perforce a fellow phoenix blazed.


s: The picture was of hand fast joined to hand,


s: Both pushed from angry skies, their grasp more pledged


s: Under the threatened flash of a bright brand


s: At arm's length up, for severing action edged.


s: Why, then Love's Court of Honour contemplate;


s: And two drowned shorecasts, who, for the life esteemed


s: Redeemed, uplifted, glimmering on a throne,


s: If, Traitress to thy sex! one sister calls.


s: Have we such scenes of drapery's mournfulness


s: On Beauty's revelations, witched we plant,


s: An angel's buckler, with loud choiric chant.


s: No knightly sword to serve, nor harp of bard,


s: The lady's hand in her physician's knew.


s: She had not hoped for them as her award,


s: When zig-zag on the tongue electric flew


s: Her charge of counter-motives, none impure:


s: But muteness whipped her skin.  She could have said,


s: Her free confession was to work his cure,


s: Show proofs for why she could not love or wed.


s: Were they not shown?  His muteness shook in thrall


s: Sheer from the treacherous confessional,


s: Slave is the open mouth beneath the closed.


s: She sank; she snatched at colours; they were peel


s: Of fruit past savour, in derision rosed.


s: For the dark downward then her soul did reel.


s: A press of hideous impulse urged to speak:


s: She felt the silence thicken, heard it shriek,


s: Heard Life subsiding on the eternal hum:


s: Welcome to women, when, between man's laws


s: And Nature's thirsts, they, soul from body torn,


s: Give suck at breast to a celestial cause,


s: Named by the mouth infernal, and forsworn.


s: Nathless her forehead twitched a sad content,


s: Her charm remaining.  Was the curtain's rent


s: Too wide? he but a man of that herd male?


s: She saw him as that herd of the forked head


s: Butting the woman harrowed on her knees,


s: Clothed only in life's last devouring red.


s: The rabble reading, roaring to denounce,


s: She joins.  No longer colouring, with skips


s: At tangles, picture that for eyes in tears


s: Might swim the sequence, she addressed her lips


s: To do the scaffold's office at his ears.


s: On women, she, deeming it present, fell.


s: They stone with, and so pile their citadel


s: To launch at outcasts the foul levin bolt.


s: As had he flung it, in her breast it burned.


s: From hardness, to the writhing rebel turned;


s: Because the golden buckler was withheld,


s: She to herself applies the powder-spark,


s: For joy of one wild demon burst ere quelled,


s: She had the Scriptural word so scored on brain,


s: It rang through air to sky, and rocked a world


s: That danced down shades the scarlet dance profane;


s: Most women! see! by the man's view dustward hurled,


s: They sink upon their nature, the unnamed,


s: And sops of nourishment may get some few,


s: In place of understanding, scourged and shamed.


s: The great Irrational, who thunders power,


s: Drives Nature to her primitive wild wood,


s: And courts her in the covert's dewy hour;


s: Returning to his fortress nigh night's end,


s: With execration of her daughters' lures.


s: They help him the proud fortress to defend,


s: Nor see what front it wears, what life immures,


s: The murder it commits; nor that its base


s: For bargain under smoothest market face,


s: While Gentleness bids frigid Justice feel,


s: Justice protests that Reason is her seat;


s: And rouses Reason's fountain-self:  she calls


s: On Nature; Nature answers:  Share your guilt


s: In common when contention cracks the walls


s: Of the big house which not on me is built.


s: The Lady said as much as breath will bear;


s: A treasure of the shore, their written book.


s: As much as woman's breath will bear and live


s: Shaped she to words beneath a knotted look,


s: That held as if for grain the summing sieve.


s: Her judge now brightened without pause, as wakes


s: Our homely daylight after dread of spells.


s: Lips sugared to let loose the little snakes


s: Should learn, that in the subject they enmesh,


s: Delusion heating pricks the torpid doubt,


s: Stationed for index down an ancient track:


s: And ware of it was he while she poured out


s: Though past the stage where midway men are skilled


s: To scan their senses wriggling under plough,


s: When yet to the charmed seed of speech distilled,


s: Their hearts are fallow, he, and witless how,


s: Loathing, had yielded, like bruised limb to leech,


s: Soul of the woman in her prostrate speech,


s: The valour of that rawness he could read.


s: Thence flashed it, as the crimson currents ran


s: From senses up to thoughts, how she had read


s: Beneath his crust, and Nature's pity shed,


s: In shedding dearer than heart's blood to light


s: His vision of the path mild Wisdom walks.


s: Therewith he could espy Confession's fright;


s: Her need of him:  these flowers grow on stalks;


s: They suck from soil, and have their urgencies


s: Beside and with the lovely face mid leaves.


s: And if he hugs no wound, the man can prize


s: That splendid consummation and sure proof


s: Of more than heart in her, who might despise,


s: Instinctive of what virtue in young days


s: Had served him for his pilot-star on sea,


s: Came out of rust, and more than the schooled tongue


s: He gave her of the deep well she had sprung;


s: And name it gratitude, the word is poor.


s: From sex to sex?  And let it have survived


s: Their conflict, comes the peace between the pair,


s: Unknown to thousands husbanded and wived:


s: Unknown to Love, too blissful in a truce.


s: Their tenderest of self did each one slay;


s: His cloak of dignity, her fleur de luce;


s: Things living, slew they, and no artery bled.


s: They passed, and were the dearer for their dead.


s: He learnt how much we gain who make no claims.


s: Was thought of her sharp shudder in the flames,


s: Confessing; and its conjured image dire,


s: Of love, the torrent on the valley dashed;


s: The whirlwind swathing tremulous peaks; young force,


s: Our senile emulous; which rolls its course


s: Proud to the shattering end; with these few last


s: Hot quintessential drops of bryony juice,


s: Squeezed out in anguish:  all of that once vast!


s: And still, though having skin for man's abuse,


s: Though no more glorying in the beauteous wreath


s: Shot skyward from a blood at passionate jet,


s: Repenting but in words, that stand as teeth


s: Among the group of this world's penitents;


s: Cravenly, while the scourge no shudder spares.


s: Our world believes it stabler if the soft


s: Are whipped to show the face repentance wears.


s: Then hear it, in a moan of atheist gloom,


s: Count Nature devilish, and accept for doom


s: The chasm between our passions and our wits!


s: Affecting lunar whiteness, patent snows,


s: Hers is the glacier-conscience, to expose


s: She to her hungered thundering in breast,


s: YE SHALL NOT STARVE, not feebly designates


s: The world repressing as a life repressed,


s: Judged by the wasted martyrs it creates.


s: Repents, she points for sight:  and she avers,


s: Nigh reads her when no brutish wrath deters.


s: Bleed in the crippled relic that abides.


s: A piece of life, the very spirit maimed.


s: But culprit who the law of man has crossed


s: With Nature's dubiously within is blamed;


s: Our shiver in the night when numbers frown,


s: The flesh, amenable to stripes, miscalled


s: To the poor shrinking stuff wherewith we are walled;


s: The shame and baffler of the soul of man,


s: The recreant, reptilious.  Do thou build


s: Thy mind on her foundations in earth's bed;


s: Behold man's mind the child of her keen rod,


s: For teaching how the wits and passions wed


s: To rear that temple of the credible God;


s: Sacred the letters of her laws, and plain,


s: Will shine, to guide thy feet and hold thee firm:


s: Then, as a pathway through a field of grain,


s: Man's laws appear the blind progressive worm,


s: That moves by touch, and thrust of linking rings


s: The which to endow with vision, lift from mud


s: To level of their nature's aims and springs,


s: Must those, the twain beside our vital flood,


s: Now on opposing banks, the twain at strife


s: Unmasked to the ghostly, much asunder smites)


s: Of heavenly can mount, and feel the spur


s: For fruitfullest advancement, eye a mark


s: Beyond the path with grain on either hand,


s: For us the double conscience and its war,


s: The serving of two masters, false to both,


s: Until those twain, who spring the root and are


s: The knowledge in division, plight a troth


s: To growl at the exchange; they, mate and mate,


s: Upon an upper plane, still common mould,


s: Where stamped religion and reflective pace


s: A statelier measure, and the hoop of gold


s: Rounds to horizon for their soul's embrace.


s: Then shall those noblest of the earth and sun


s: But not till Nature's laws and man's are one,


s: He passed her through the sermon's dull defile.


s: The city and the vale and mountain-pile.


s: She felt strange push of shuttle-threads that weaved.


s: And forth to meet it did her spirit rush,


s: As bride who without shame has come to say,


s: Husband, in his dear face that caused her blush.


s: A natural woman's heart, not more than clad


s: By station and bright raiment, gathers heat


s: From nakedness in trusted hands:  she had


s: The joy of those who feel the world's heart beat,


s: Because one man had helped her to breathe free;


s: Surprised to faith in something of a price


s: Our first wild step to right the loaded scales


s: For serving justice till that fraud is brayed.


s: The startled thought on black delirium sank,


s: While with her gentle surgeon she communed,


s: And woman's prospect of the yoke repelled.


s: Her buried body gave her flowers and food;


s: The peace, the homely skies, the springs that welled;


s: Love, the large love that folds the multitude.


s: With beauty, made the dower to men refused.


s: And little do they know the prize they miss;


s: Which is their happy fortune!  Thus he mused


s: To think, of all alive most wedded they,


s: Whom time disjoined!  He needed her quick thirst


s: For renovated earth:  on earth she gazed,


s: With humble aim to foot beside the wise.


s: Lo, where the eyelashes of night are raised


s: Yet lowly over morning's pure grey eyes.


s: Thou, run to the dry on this wayside bank,


s: Too plainly of all the propellers bereft!


s: Even such limp slough as the snake has left


s: In its frame of a grin at the seeker, is thine;


s: Accuse him:  some devil committed the theft,


s: Pursue him:  and first, to be sure of his track,


s: Over devious ways that have led to this,


s: To where waves Morning her fleur-de-lys,


s: Unflushed at the front of the roseate door


s: Through his eyelashes' laugh, a breathing pearl.


s: There the young chief of the animals wore


s: Of his love of himself; with the hours at leap.


s: In a dingle away from a rutted highroad,


s: Around him the earliest throstle and merle,


s: This earth; very angels the clouds; and fair


s: Thou on the tablets of forehead and breast:


s: The room of the toys was a boundless nest,


s: When they tell of him lightly appeased in a scream


s: By sweets and caresses:  he gave but sign


s: That the heir of a purse-plumped dominant race,


s: When her butterfly showed him an eaglet born,


s: And high to the uttermost heavens it flew,


s: It ran the sea-wave, the garden's dance,


s: To the forest's dark heart down a dappled glade;


s: Woman, the name was, when she took form;


s: Sheaf of the wonders of life.  She fled,


s: Close imaged; she neared, far seen.  How she made


s: Did she not show thee the world designed


s: The day was the morrow in flight.  And for thee,


s: Eye of the waters, and throb of the tree,


s: Sliding on radiance, winging from shade,


s: With her witch-whisper o'er ruins, in reeds,


s: She sang low the song of her promise delayed;


s: Shone she a lure of the honey-bag swarm,


s: Most was her beam on the knightly:  she led


s: For the honours of manhood more than the prize;


s: And shy of her secrets she was; under deeps


s: Plunged at the breath of a thirst that woke


s: The dream in the cave where the Dreaded sleeps.


s: And caught many lustres, till some one said


s: (Or was it the thought into hearing grew?),


s: Thereanon the keen passions clapped wing,


s: No simple world of thy greenblade Spring,


s: A four-walled windowless world without ray,


s: Only darkening jets on a river of slime,


s: See now the heart dwindle, the frame distend;


s: The soul to its anchorite cavern retreat,


s: From a life that reeks of the rotted end;


s: Gourd-like swells of the rank of the soil,


s: With parasites tickled, with slaves begirt,


s: He strutted, a cock, he bellowed, a bull,


s: And dog, bull, cook, was he, fanged, horned, plumed;


s: Carnivorous, cannibal; length-long exhumed,


s: The primitive weapons of prey in his pouch;


s: To carrion turning what flesh he touched.


s: Which has roving eyes over yielded lips:


s: To-morrow will fancy himself the seduced,


s: Because of his faith in a purchased pair,


s: But deeds are the picture in essence, deeds


s: As a child of the Death and the Life, to learn,


s: A morn beyond mornings, beyond all reach


s: Of emotional arms at the stretch to enfold:


s: To those having nought to reflect it, 'tis nought;


s: To those who are misty, 'tis mist on the beach


s: From the billow withdrawing; to those who see


s: Ay, the Life and the Death are her words to us here,


s: Of one significance, pricking the blind.


s: This is thy gain now the surface is clear:


s: To read with a soul in the mirror of mind


s: Is man's chief lesson.--Thou smilest!  I preach!


s: Abysses within; frigid preaching a street


s: Thou hast a disgust of the sermon in rhyme.


s: It is not attractive in being too chaste.


s: So, then, onward.  Philosophy, thoughtless to soothe,


s: Lifts, if thou wilt, or there leaves thee supine.


s: Thy condition, good sooth, has no seeming of sweet;


s: It walks our first crags, it is flint for the tooth,


s: But manful has met it, manful will meet.


s: And think of thy privilege:  supple with youth,


s: And free of them thou, to begin a new bout;


s: To start a fresh hunt on a resolute blast:


s: No more an imp-ridden to bournes of eclipse:


s: Having knowledge to spur thee, a gift to compare;


s: Rubbing shoulder to shoulder, as only the book


s: Of the world can be read, by necessity urged.


s: For witness, what blinkers are they who look


s: From the state of the prince or the millionnaire!


s: And never the thought in the shell of the act,


s: But first, that the poisonous of thee be purged,


s: She is there, she is felt in a blow struck hard.


s: Thou findest a pugilist countering quick,


s: Cunning at drives where thy shutters are barred;


s: Not, after the studied professional trick,


s: Blue-sealing; she brightens the sight.  Strike Earth,


s: Antaeus, young giant, whom fortune trips!


s: Be it clay, flint, mud, or the rubble of chips,


s: Thy roots have grasp in the stern-exact:


s: The redemption of sinners deluded! the last


s: To the common big heart are we bound right fast,


s: Under which grew our grim little beast-god stout;


s: Self-worshipped, the foe, in division from all;


s: With crowds of illogical Christians, no doubt;


s: At humanity:  sign of a nature bechurled.


s: Distinguish thy tempers and trim thy wits.


s: The purchased are things of the mart, not classed


s: Among resonant types that have freely grown.


s: Thy knowledge of women might be surpassed:


s: As any sad dog's of sweet flesh when he quits


s: No revilings of comrades as ingrates:  thee


s: The tempter, misleader, and criminal (screened


s: As the punch-bowl does, in the moral vein,


s: And the vessel is loquent of nature's inane,


s: Like a Phalaris bull, with the victim's force:


s: It were well for thy system to sermonize.


s: There are giants to slay, and they call for their Jack.


s: For once shall repentance be done by the tongue:


s: Where he shivers, a culprit fettered and shaved;


s: O a bird stripped of feather, a fish clipped of fin!


s: And commend for a washing the torrents of wrath,


s: Which hurl at the foe of the dearest men prize


s: For the crushing of enemies not of great size:


s: Men's right of bequeathing their all to their own


s: (With little regard for the creatures they squeezed);


s: Their mill and mill-water and nether mill-stone


s: Tied fast to their infant; lo, this is the last


s: Of their hungers, by prudent devices appeased.


s: The law they decree is their ultimate slave;


s: Wherein we perceive old Voracity glassed.


s: It works from their dust, and it reeks of their grave.


s: Point them to greener, though Journals be guns;


s: To brotherly fields under fatherly skies;


s: Where the savage still primitive learns of a debt


s: He has owed since he drummed on his belly for war;


s: And how for his giving, the more will he get;


s: For trusting his fellows, leave friends round his sons:


s: Till they see, with the gape of a startled surprise,


s: Their adored tyrant-monster a brute to abhor,


s: The sun of their system a father of flies!


s: So, for such good hope, take their scourge unashamed;


s: How the brutish antique of our springs may be tamed,


s: Without loss of the strength that should push us to flower;


s: How the God of old time will act Satan of new,


s: If we keep him not straight at the higher God aimed;


s: This house of our life; where our bitterest pains


s: Are those to eject the Infernal, who heaps


s: Mire on the soul.  Take stripes or chains;


s: And what if our body be dashed from the steeps?


s: The young generation! ah, there is the child


s: Of our souls down the Ages! to bleed for it, proof


s: That souls we have, with our senses filed,


s: To encounter the rattle of hostile bolts,


s: To look on the rising of Stranger Powers.


s: May it know how the mind in expansion revolts


s: From a nursery Past with dead letters aloof,


s: And the piping to stupor of Precedents shun,


s: In a field where the forefather print of the hoof


s: Is not yet overgrassed by the watering hours,


s: And should prompt us to Change, as to promise of sun,


s: For that large light we have laboured and tramped


s: Thorough forests and bogland, still to perceive


s: When the wolf was the hypocrite fang under hood,


s: Then our forefather hoof did its work in the wood,


s: Three-fold thrice over, if bent to bind,


s: It signifies battle or death's dull knell.


s: Our Mother, who speeds her bloomful quick


s: For the march, reads which the impediment well.


s: She smiles when of sapience is their boast.


s: O loose of the tug between blood run dry


s: And blood running flame may our offspring run!


s: May brain democratic be king of the host!


s: Less then shall the volumes of History tell


s: Of the stop in progression, the slip in relapse,


s: That counts us a sand-slack inch hard won


s: Beneath an oppressive incumbent perhaps.


s: Let the senile lords in a parchment sky,


s: And the generous turbulents drunken of morn,


s: Along to the mounts from the bog-forest weald.


s: It merits a glance at our history's maps,


s: To see across Britain's old shaggy unshorn,


s: Through the Parties in strife internecine, foot


s: The ruler's close-reckoned direct to the mark.


s: From the head ran the vanquisher's orderly route,


s: In the stride of his forts through the tangle and dark.


s: From the head runs the paved firm way for advance,


s: And we shoulder, we wrangle!  The light on us shed


s: Shows dense beetle blackness in swarm, lurid Chance,


s: The Goddess of gamblers, above.  From the head,


s: Then when it worked for the birth of a star


s: Fraternal with heaven's in beauty and ray,


s: And ask what thou wast when the Purse was brimmed:


s: What high-bounding ball for the Gods at play:


s: A Conservative youth! who the cream-bowl skimmed,


s: Desiring affairs to be left as they are.


s: So, thou takest Youth's natural place in the fray,


s: In thy mind for the opposite party's decease,


s: Expunge it:  extinguishing counts poor gain.


s: From the puffings of him of the bagpipe cheeks.


s: Our political, even as the merchant main,


s: Neither God of the winds nor his bellowsy squires.


s: His reasons for rocking the lullaby word.


s: You stand on a different stage of the stairs.


s: He fought certain battles, yon senile lord.


s: In the strength of thee, feel his bequest to his heirs.


s: We are now on his inches of ground hard won,


s: For a perch to a flight o'er his resting fence.


s: Does it knock too hard at thy head if I say,


s: Tough lesson, when senses are floods over sense! -


s: There are those whom we push from the path with respect.


s: Bow to that elder, though seeing him bow


s: To the backward as well, for a thunderous back


s: Upon thee.  In his day he was not all wrong.


s: Unto some foundered zenith he strove, and was wrecked.


s: He scrambled to shore with a worship of shore.


s: The Future he sees as the slippery murk;


s: He stands now the rock to the wave's wild wash.


s: Yet thy lumpish antagonist once did work


s: His gold to retain and his dross reject,


s: Engage him, but humour, not aiming to quash.


s: Drink of faith in the brains a full draught


s: 'Tis known how the permanent never is writ


s: In blood of the passions:  mercurial they,


s: But with rhetoric loose, can we check man's brute?


s: Excitement for wholesome diversion:  there shoot


s: Electrical sparks between their dry thatch


s: And thy waved torch, more to kindle than light.


s: 'Tis instant between you:  the trick of a catch


s: Will thump them a frenzy or fun in their veins.


s: Then may it be rather the well-worn joke


s: Thou repeatest, to stop conflagration, and write


s: Penance for rhetoric.  Strange will it seem,


s: When thou readest that form of thy homage to brains!


s: Though they carry hot mobs to the red extreme,


s: Engines o'ercharged with our human steam),


s: Question thee, seething amid the throng.


s: And ask, whether Wisdom is born of blood-heat;


s: Or of other than Wisdom comes victory here; -


s: Aught more than the banquet and roundelay,


s: That is closed with a terrible terminal wail,


s: Does it sound to the mind through the ear,


s: Right sober, pure sane? has it disciplined feet?


s: All forces that make us are one full stream.


s: Simple islander! thus may the spirit in verse,


s: Pipe to thee clear from the Empty Purse,


s: Dislink thee sharp from the ramping horde,


s: Queen of those issueless mobs, that rend


s: For frenzy the strings of a fruitful accord,


s: Shorn from their fellows, behold them wend!


s: To inspirit and temper, tune it, and steer


s: Through the shoals:  is it worthy of Song,


s: For he is the Master of Measure, and weighs,


s: The one sure life for the numbered long,


s: He points to the God on the upmost throne:


s: He, Harmony, tells how to Measure pertain


s: Alike by the flesh and the spirit endowed


s: To create, to perpetuate; woo, win, wed;


s: Send progeny streaming, have earth for their own,


s: Over-run the insensates, disperse with a puff


s: Not as Cybele's beast will thy head lash tail


s: With thy love tight about; and no death will be;


s: And battle will come as a challenge to drink;


s: As a warrior's wound each transient sting.


s: She leads to the Uppermost link by link;


s: The plural warm round us; ourself in the thick,


s: For the letters of Life behind its mask;


s: Her flower-like look under fearful brows.


s: As for thy special case, O my friend, one must think


s: Knew worse:  but the wretch had his opening choice.


s: For thee, by our law, no alternatives were:


s: Thy fall was assured ere thou camest to a voice.


s: Do thou with thy lean as the weapon of ink,


s: Though they call thee an angler who fishes the vague


s: Attack one as murderous, knowing thy cause


s: Our preacher to win is the supple in stiff:


s: Yet always in measure, with bearing polite:


s: Under aspect of water so guilelessly white


s: For the general use, by the devils befouled.


s: Thou hast listened with patience; another had howled.


s: Repentance is proved, forgiveness is earned.


s: And 'tis bony:  denied thee thy succulent half


s: Of the parable's blessing, to swineherd returned:


s: A Sermon thy slice of the Scriptural calf!


s: Not the less, when our Earth we have seen


s: Beneath and on surface, her deeds and designs:


s: The martyrs, the poets, the corn and the vines.


s: By my faith in the head, she has wonders in loom;


s: Revelations, delights.  I can hear a faint crow


s: Of the cock of fresh mornings, far, far, yet distinct;


s: When our Earth we have seen, and have linked


s: With the home of the Spirit to whom we unfold,


s: Its fortress gates, and the rivers of gold


s: Then the meaning of Earth in her children behold:


s: Glad eyes, frank hands, and a fellowship real:


s: And laughter on lips, as the birds' outburst


s: At the flooding of light.  No robbery then


s: The feast, nor a robber's abode the home,


s: Nor History written in blood or in foam,


s: For vendetta of Parties in cursing accursed.


s: The God in the conscience of multitudes feel,


s: Yield into harness thy best and thy worst;


s: Away on the trot of thy servitude start,


s: Through the rigours and joys and sustainments of air.


s: If courage should falter, 'tis wholesome to kneel.


s: Remember that well, for the secret with some,


s: Who pray for no gift, but have cleansing in prayer,


s: And free from impurities tower-like stand.


s: I promise not more, save that feasting will come


s: To a mind and a body no longer inversed:


s: The sense of large charity over the land,


s: Earth's wheaten of wisdom dispensed in the rough,


s: And a bell ringing thanks for a sustenance meal


s: But it carries a sparkle!  And now enough,


s: To meet again never or some day or soon.


s: Our season of drought is reminder rude:-


s: How at every draught of his bride of thirst


s: His nostrils widened!  The sight was good:


s: Drew our thoughts to earth's lowly for food.


s: Thou guardian issue of the harvest brain!


s: Which is our gold crushed out of joy and pain


s: Since first men planted foot and hand was king:


s: Across its webs and round the many a ring


s: Where fox it is, or snake, or mingled seeds


s: Occasion heats to shape, or the poor smoke


s: Struck from a puff-ball, or the troughster's grunt; -


s: Once lion of our desert's trodden weeds;


s: And but for thy straight finger at the yoke,


s: In the mind's firmament, by men upraised


s: With sweat of blood when they had quitted cave


s: For fellowship, and rearward looked amazed,


s: Where the prime motive gapes a lurid jaw,


s: Thou, soul of wakened heads, art armed to warn,


s: Restrain, lest we backslide on whence we sprang,


s: Scarce better than our dwarf beginning shoot,


s: Of every gathered pearl and blossom shorn;


s: Through thee, in novel wiles to win disguise,


s: Seen are the pits of the disruptor, seen


s: His handmaiden appear!  Youth claims his hour.


s: Off whom Life leans for guidance in our fight,


s: A tumbled top to grind a wolf's worn tooth; -


s: Of wisdom else, the breast's old tempter trips;


s: Abjection, while the crackskull name of Fate


s: Is used to stamp and hallow printed fact;


s: These and, majestic in a borrowed shape,


s: The criers of foregone wisdom, who impose


s: Its slough on live conditions, much for the greed


s: Of our first hungry figure wide agape; -


s: Call up thy hounds of laughter to their run.


s: These, that would have men still of men be foes,


s: The herd the drover's herd, the fool the fool,


s: Ourself our slavish self's infernal sun:


s: These are the children of the heart untaught


s: By thy quick founts to beat abroad, by thee


s: Untamed to tone its passions under thought,


s: Of them a world of coltish heels for school


s: We have; a world with driving wrecks bestrewn.


s: 'Tis written of the Gods of human mould,


s: Those Nectar Gods, of glorious stature hewn


s: To quicken hymns, that they did hear, incensed,


s: The jester's; but they boiled to feel him bite.


s: Better for them had they with Reason fenced


s: Or smiled corrected!  They in the great Gods' might


s: Crumbled Olympus when the sovereign sire


s: Men could behold the sacred Mount aspire,


s: Those Gods who saw the ejected laugh alight


s: They in the cup sought Laughter's drowned sprite,


s: Fed to dire fatness off uncurbed conceit.


s: Eyes under saw them waddle on their Mount,


s: And drew them down; to flattest earth they rolled.


s: This know we veritable.  O Sage of Mirth!


s: Of the fall'n plight of the great Gods on earth?


s: How they being deathless, though of human mould,


s: Whom a loose-cheeked, wide-lipped gay cripple leads


s: And lightly he will hint to one that heeds


s: Names in pained designation of them, names


s: Ensphered on blue skies and on black, which twirl


s: Our hearing madly from our seeing dazed,


s: Running wild labyrinths of line and curl)


s: Whose thunder is the brass of how he blazed


s: Of old:  for him of the mountain-muscle feats,


s: Who guts a drum to fetch a snappish groan:


s: For his fierce bugler horning onset, whom


s: He names; they are a rayless red and white;


s: The dawn-hued libertine, the gibbous prude.


s: He asks; exhausted names her:  she has become


s: Leaping the dam!  He fondly calls, his girl,


s: The buxom tripper with the goblet-smile,


s: Refreshful.  O but now his brows are dun,


s: Bunched are his lips, as when distilling guile,


s: To drop his venomous:  the Dame of dames,


s: She of the earthly rose in the sea-pearl,


s: To whom the world ran ocean for her kiss;


s: And indicates with a contemptuous thumb.


s: Ogles the bursters of the horn and drum.


s: Have suckers for beholders:  she to this?


s: For that she could not, save in fury, hear


s: Her idle manners, for the laugh to strike


s: Above the snows, among the flowers?  She reaps


s: Gross with the sacrifice of Circe-swarms,


s: Astarte of vile sweets that slay, malign,


s: From Greek resplendent to Phoenician foul,


s: The trader in attractions sinks, all brine


s: To thoughts of taste; is 't love?--bark, dog! hoot, owl!


s: And she is blushless:  ancient worship weeps.


s: Sprawling like gourds on outer garden-heaps.


s: Mid draggled creepers of twined ivy sere.


s: The curtain cried for magnifies to see! -


s: We cannot quench our one corrupting glance:


s: Doth the Boy own such Mother?--shoot his dart


s: To bring her, countless as the crested deeps,


s: False is that vision, shrieks the devotee;


s: Like a far growling lightning-cloud it leaps.


s: Low humourist this leader seems; perchance


s: Prodigiously they did the deeds of flesh:


s: Descending, they would touch the lowest here:


s: And she, that lighted form of blue and gold,


s: Whom the seas gave, all earth, all earth embraced;


s: Exulting in the great hauls of her mesh;


s: Most human of them was.  No more pursue!


s: Enough that the black story can be told.


s: For whom disastrous wreckage is nigh due,


s: Paints omen.  Truly they our throbber had;


s: The passions plumping, passions playing leech,


s: Cunning to trick us for the day's good cheer.


s: Borne on the tides of alternating heats,


s: Will drug the brain, will doom the soul as well;


s: Call the closed mouth of that harsh final Power


s: To speak in judgement:  Nemesis, the fell:


s: Of those bright Gods assembled, offspring sour;


s: As with men Reason when their hearts rebel.


s: Ah, what a fruitless breeder is this heart,


s: Full of the mingled seeds, each eating each.


s: Not wiser of our mark than at the start,


s: It surges like the wrath-faced father Sea


s: To countering winds; a force blind-eyed,


s: Above our flesh; its cravings urging speech,


s: For seats angelical:  it shrinks, it yearns,


s: Loves, loathes; is flame or cinders; lastly cloud


s: We see cloud-capped, an army of the dark,


s: Because of thy straight leadership declined;


s: At heels of this or that delusive spark:


s: A thickened host; when now we hear aloud


s: Light of the mind, the mind's discourse,


s: For payment of their dues; as yet disowned,


s: Save where some dutiful lone creature, vowed


s: To holy work, deems it the heart's intent;


s: Or where a silken circle views it cowled,


s: The heavens shall see us clean of our own dust,


s: And where they win reflection, lucid heave


s: The under tides of this hot heart seen through.


s: Tearing the mortal from the vital thing,


s: Till their drowsed wits a beam conceive,


s: And how are wedded heart and head regaled


s: Wide from the timely word with conquest charged;


s: And are to our fraternal state enlarged;


s: Like warm fresh blood is their enlivened ken:


s: They learn that thou art not of alien sort,


s: Or of the vain who simple speech distort,


s: Along cold skies; though sharp and high thy pitch;


s: As when sole homeward the belated treads,


s: That once had seemed the broomstick witch


s: He, from the rub of minds dispersing fears,


s: Hears migrants marshalling their midnight train;


s: Not less than in the lighted village steads.


s: So do those half-illumed wax clear to share


s: A cry that is our common voice; the note


s: And toning drops as from pure heaven it sheds.


s: For thy sweet singing keynote of the wise,


s: Beneath the stroke of her good servant's blade -


s: Thenceforth art as their earth-star hailed;


s: The greater heart in thy appeal to heads


s: They see, thou Captain of our civil Fort!


s: And blow to chaff pretenders void of grist:


s: Showing old tiger's claws, old crocodile's


s: Yard-grin of eager grinders, slim to sight,


s: Like forms in running water, oft when smiles,


s: When pearly tears, when fluent lips delight:


s: But never with the slayer's malice fired:


s: Clenched at the sneeze!  Thou wouldst but have us be


s: Good sons of mother soil, whereby to grow


s: Branching on fairer skies, one stately tree;


s: Broad of the tilth for flowering at the Court:


s: Which is the tree bound fast to wave its tress;


s: Of strength controlled sheer beauty to bestow.


s: Where souls of men with soul of man consort,


s: Begotten of the look:  thy mark is there;


s: Rightly though fearfully thou wieldest sword


s: That they resisting thee themselves resist;


s: And not thy bigger joy to smite and drive,


s: Prompt the dense herd to butt, and set the snare


s: Witching them into pitfalls for hoarse shouts.


s: More now, and hourly more, and of the Lord


s: Thou lead'st to, doth this rebel heart discern,


s: It fears thee less when thou hast shown it bare;


s: Less hates, part understands, nor much resents,


s: When the prized objects it has raised for prayer,


s: For fitful prayer;--repentance dreading fire,


s: Impelled by aches; the blindness which repents


s: Like the poor trampled worm that writhes in mire; -


s: Are sounded by thee, and thou darest probe


s: Once fortresses against the floods of sin,


s: For what their worth; and questioningly prod


s: Impeding blocks, less useful than the clod;


s: This half-enlightened heart, still doomed to fret,


s: Of gain or loss, bewailing the sure rod,


s: Something it gathers of what things should drop


s: At entrance on new times; of how thrice broad


s: A straggling Nature classed in school, and scored


s: With stripes admonishing, may yield to plough


s: Fruitfullest furrows, nor for waxing tame


s: Be feeble on an Earth whose gentler crop


s: Is its most living, in the mind that steers,


s: By Reason led, her way of tree and flame,


s: Proof of the closer neighbourhood.  Head on,


s: Sword of the many, light of the few! untwist


s: Or cut our tangles till fair space is won


s: Holding, as she, all dissonance abhorred;


s: And teaching how for being subjected free


s: Past thought of freedom we may come to know


s: When the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer,


s: Behold the winged Olympus, off the mead,


s: With thunder of wide pinions, lightning speed,


s: Wafting the shepherd-boy through ether clear,


s: When the young heart is tiptoe perched on sight.


s: We meanwhile who in hues of the sick year


s: The Spring-time paint to prick us for our lost,


s: For Age that would to youthful heavens ascend,


s: By passion for the arms' possession tossed,


s: It falls the way of sighs and hath their end;


s: A spark gone out to more sepulchral night.


s: Be then the little bird that hops to feed.


s: She could write out their history in their thirst


s: They now bared roots beside the river bent;


s: Those worn roped features under crust of mud,


s: Not less the branching and high singing tree,


s: Until their hour for losing hold on ground.


s: Even such good harvest of the things that flee


s: Earth offers her subjected, and they choose


s: Rather of Bacchic Youth one beam to drink,


s: And warm slow marrow with the sensual wink.


s: So block they at her source the Mother of the Muse.


s: Without a fall, and pipes for peck at crumbs,


s: May have her dolings to the lightest touch;


s: As where some cripple muses by his crutch,


s: Scenes where his nested dreams upon their hoard


s: From her full throbbing breast of day in night.


s: And cavernous is that young dragon's jaw,


s: Once more consume, were Life recurrent May.


s: The death that makes ethereal life would bind:


s: The death that breeds the spectre do they find.


s: Darkness is wedded and the waste regrets


s: Beating as dead leaves on a fitful gust,


s: And dooms to sink and water sable flowers,


s: For one prized tune is this our chord of life.


s: 'Tis clipped to deadness with a wanton knife,


s: Yet have we glad companionship of Youth,


s: Dare we to face deeds done, and in our tomb


s: Of loved and hated, grasp all human truth


s: To feel that heaven must we that hell sound through:


s: That brings our middle station into view,


s: Between those poles; a novel Earth we see,


s: In likeness of us, made of banned and blest;


s: The sower's bed, but not the reaper's rest:


s: An Earth alive with meanings, wherein meet


s: May sense of soul, the sum of music, beat.


s: Where hangs our flowering under vapours black,


s: And bear to see how these pervade, obscure,


s: They take phantasmal forms, divide, convolve,


s: For criminal, and, Father! shrieking name,


s: Accept them, them and him, though hiss thy sweat


s: That heavily up healthward mounts the steep;


s: Our fleshly road to beacon-fire of brain:


s: Below, whose heave is topped with foam for fruit,


s: And the fair heaven reflecting inner peace


s: On righteous warfare, that asks not to cease.


s: Forth of such passage through black fire we win


s: Or wave at ebb, the shallow catching rays


s: On a transparent sheet, where curves a glass


s: To truer heavens than when the breaker neighs


s: Loud at the plunge for bubbly wreck in roar.


s: Once tyrants of the senses, faintly score


s: While present in the spirit, vital there,


s: Are things that seemed the phantoms of their time;


s: Its coloured lines where deeds of flesh stand bald.


s: True of the man, and of mankind 'tis true,


s: Did we stout battle with the Shade, Despair,


s: Our cowardice, it blooms; or haply warred


s: Against the primal beast in us, and flung;