Poems with Fables in Prose :: :: University of Virginia Library

On Romney Marsh at sunrise
We heard the curlew call,
And the young lambs crying to the sheep
Within the old sea-wall;
The bleak tree that the sea-wind strikes
Is bowed across the lilied dykes,
All heaven drifting with the lark,
The lark that sings for all.

You gathered mushrooms from the grass,
The newborn mushrooms white;
And stooped about with tender cries
That come of pure delight.
The sheep-lit pastures run for miles
With distant villages for isles,
And Lympne's grey castle on the down
Beholds us from the height.

Ah, was your stirring beauty more
Than mortal man can bear,
Or was it that your tresses streamed
Enchantment on the air?
I old the winds how we had lain
With heart to heart laid bare,
In sublimation of desire,

156

Like a singing and outsoaring fire
A-poise in slumber there,
High on the night-world's shaken breast
Hearkening the beat of seas at rest,
You and your worshipper;

Sang of the region beyond song
Where no pale death devours,
Yon light-impassion'd vast of bliss
Whence falls upon us both the kiss
Of new awakening powers.
O'er-vaulting golden cloudlets race
Eastwards, and leave us time and space;
Strange winds and clouds and falls of sheen
Mix'd at this birth of flowers;
We are breakers-in upon some scene
Meant for new eyes like ours.

In rich rebuke of mantling pride
I saw your bosom move.
“Bring it not down to earth!” you cried.
“Keep it in shade, that great exchange
Of life and joy—that rare and strange
And glowing awe of love.
Be it remembered, treasured, sighed,
Be it remembered, dreamed and sighed,
But never spoken of!”

157

Shall then the very core of life
Rouse on the harp no string?
Shall they be dumb, those radiances,
That have so fleet a wing?
Shall it awake, the great sunrise,
To perish, all unheard,
And the soul's wide flights of melodies
Fail for a narrow word?

Since we must forth, like gallant ships,
Far from the haven'd land,
Since we must melt like sandy smoke
That blows along the strand,
Since we must bow and part in grief,
Like the rushes or the driven leaf,
O put not on my singing lips
The proud seal of your hand!

Were the deep heaven's golden hosts
Beneath our feet like these—
Had we outswept the shade of Earth
And the long sound of her seas,
Our wingèd feet for ever meant
Through a thousand lives to run,
Each with a new-dawned firmament,
Breaking from sun to sun—
How well with thee were I content,
Thy mute companion,
Only with thee and beauty blent
Always to journey on!

158

But, lovely Silence!—voices parting,
Answering,—through light we breathe
In clearness and in glory once,—
Are all we can bequeath.
E'en mad winds joy—all that have breath
Arise and break to flame;
Hour ineffaceable as death
Shalt thou not have a name?

Exquisite Spirit, in whose eyes
Floats the unseeing ray,
Though utterance scorch between us two
Let my fierce spirit reach to you,
Be silence torn away!
Now wave meets wave; and dull grief's weight,
O'erwhelming time, ascends,
Now the shaken soul's half-agony
For an instant comprehends,
Now all things travel to a voice—
We see, as from a shore;
Let the heart speak, while yet we see,
Lest it have sight no more.