University of Virginia Library

SONNETS

[I
Strong saturation of sea! O widely flown,]

Strong saturation of sea! O widely flown,
Far winds of fall, your litanies of pain
Moan like the music of a wild refrain
Heard thro' the midnight of a feudal town!
Young night is lipped with jasper where the blown
Burden of evening lights intensely wane,
And, shuddering seaward from the tawny plain,
Vague fold on fold the enormous dark comes down.
Gusty and fervid as the sleepless sea
The passionate fancies of a formless fear
Spring in my nervous brain like monstrous flowers;
The night, the wind-chant work their will of me,
And thoughts like death-bells echoing far and near,
Toll for life's lost, irrevocable hours.

[II
How many a life must thou the journey keep]

How many a life must thou the journey keep,
O soul, thro' sexual seasons of the years?
O heart, how many a harvest of thy tears
Shall life's sharp sword of unfulfillment reap?
The breath of dawn shall blow—haply with tears!—
How oft, O heart, O soul, before the deep
Darkness and still eternity of sleep
Bring natural justice for life's long arrears?
Ah! when my rose of life is ripe to fall,
Pray God I sink thro' gardens of the sun
Till the dead fingers of oblivion
Constrain my heart, and there lie over me
The tideless waters and the eventual
Darkness of death's unlit, unlifting sea!

[III
Come home to me at last! Come home to me]

Come home to me at last! Come home to me!
Bring me thy youth of tears and great desires;
Frail round thy tired head the music tires,
The music shed between the stars and sea!
While still thy youth is echoing with its free
Love-songs resounding like a storm of lyres,
Come with thy deeds and dreams;—and thro' the fires
Of wisdom sift the ash of memory.
Come home to me at last! Life whispers, “Come!”
Yea! thro' the mist of passions sad with loss,
Strong in the sumptuous dusk, the light of home,
The light of soul where thou must journey, lays,
While spring is sweet in all the old dear ways,
A splendour and a sacrament across!

[IV
Hush, child! Be still and give thy fingers rest]

Hush, child! Be still and give thy fingers rest,
Thine eyes the darkness, and thy lips that press
Hard on the lips of life with fierce caress,
Ease from their hunger and thy guideless quest.
Ask of the vacant eyes and stirless breast
Of life's last angel, pale Forgetfulness,
Peace, and release from thought's eternal stress:
She, of life's violent, fervent Gods, is best.
Peace, child! Beneath her hand the fretful flame
Of long desire grows frail and faint as dream:
The immediate life is alien to despair.
Held on her heart seem life and death the same,
And nothing is at all and all things seem,
And if life dies thou shalt not even care!

[V
Then cried the song of Life: “The flowers that fall]

Then cried the song of Life: “The flowers that fall,
Spendthrift of perfume, shall return again
Fed by the tireless earth and fragrant rain:
Far down the glimmering sea the musical
Lips of the dawn repeat their clarion call;
Always the heart shall kindle to regain
Love's young desire whose very strength is pain,
For life is love and love is best of all!”
Then breathed an elder music: “I am peace!
Peace of the silent soul, sphered in such wise
That no thing lives or dies, is pleased or sad
In me, where hope and prayer and struggle cease!
Wise with my light thy calm and steadfast eyes
Beholding death shall not be even glad!”