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

For none had known him by his gait
Descending from the hills,
Though far and wide before him blew
The friendly daffodils;
No shepherd had discovered him
On upland pastures bare
By dew-pond or green Roman camp:
No voice aloft in air

Along lone barrows of great downs
With kine in rolling combes,
Where bells blow up from all the plain
To headlands spring perfumes,

Proclaimed him to those combes and folds
Of little lambs unyeaned,
Or sung him to the billowy woods
With spray of buds begreened,

Where spreads in haze the snowy maze
Of orchards deep-ravined—

Telling the dingles of the thrush
To overflow with sound,
Warning the grassy commons all
In vales for miles around:

“Wake, shady forest coverts wide!
Wake, skylit river-sward!
Chases and meres and misty shires
Be ready for your lord!”

But he would not stay nor tarry there
On the blithe edge of the down,
To the sea-coast his errand was
And the smoke-hanging town.

Far off he saw its harbours shine,
And black sea-bastions thronged
With masts of the sea-traffickers
For whom his spirit longed.

Far off he heard the windlass heaved
And creaking of the cranes,
Gay barges hailed and poled along,
And rattling fall of chains,

Till by the windows of that Inn
He sate and took his ease
Where bowsprits of the swarthy ships
Came thrusting to the quays.

2: THE RUMOUR

Apollo

“And why are you cast down, sailor?
And why are you cast down?
With lapfuls of the guineas light
Come you not back to town?

Your feet that must have run in air
Aloft the slippy mast
Are they not glad to land, my lad,
On steady ground at last?”

Up from his brown rope-harden'd hands
A heavy chin he raised,
And sidelong through the harbour bluffs
Looked out like man amazed.

Seaman

If you had cruised as I have cruised
Abroad for many a year,
Your blood like mine it would have struck
At the strange news I hear.

The Moon went riding high last night
And the dance along the quays,
But I could not find it in my heart
To care for shows like these;

While still I felt the rollers' lift
Bear on through the dark land,
And little houses here still rock
And sway—they would not stand—

I heard them calling in the streets
That the ship I serve upon—
The great ship Immortality—
Was gone down, like the sun. . . .

3: THE SHIP

Apollo
And whence did that craft hail, sailor,
Of which you seem so fond?

Seaman
It was some harbour of the East,
Back o' beyond, back o' beyond!

Apollo
What shipwrights' hammers rang on her,
The stout ship and the leal?
In what green forest inlet lay
Her cradle and her keel?

Seaman

I think some arm of the sea-gods
Framed us her stormy frame,
And ribbed and beamed and stanchioned her,
And gave her strength a name.

Never, Sir Traveller, have you seen
A sight the half as fine
As when she hove up from the East
On our horizon-line!

Apollo

I have seen a dead god on the Nile
Paddled by tribes of bronze,
Under mud-built villages of palms
Glide, statelier than swans,
And Isis' frail moon-golden skiff
Restore him to that barque of life
Whose years are millions.

I have seen Jason and his men
Into bows of Argo piece
Oak of Dodona, ere she slid
To find the golden fleece:
Ay, and triremes of the marble isles
Pursue from Salamis.

I have seen master-galleys rise
Dipping in mass the oar,
And centaur-carven caravels,
And galleons big with ore,
Dromonds, and mountain'd argosies
That sack the globe no more:

Great sails, like yellow weeping clouds,
Heap'd thunder, roaring squall—
And their fadings, like the fleet of stars
That floateth over all.

Seaman

Well—ask all navies such as these—
Was she not more divine
Who, challenged by Death's muffled drums,
Gave Death the countersign?

Ah, to serve on her in time of war!
It set aflame your blood
To feel her in the slack of peace
Come booming up the flood,

Thousands of wings about her bows
As she cast away the deep,
The morning star swung from a spar
And every sail asleep.

Her masts! Land-locked and shut away
From the sea-winds' scud and psalm,
Her masts, they trembled in a leash—
You laid on them your palm—
They quivered over with great life
That never could be calm.

No frothings in your purple wake
On the lone path to the pole,
White as the spread of sail on her
That lent wings to your soul—

Apollo
What was her build, that boat of yours
So proud upon the sea?
What was her make of hull and deck,
What suit of sails had she?

Seaman
Her stretch of sail so white, so white,
By no man's hand unfurled,
Was Heaven!

Apollo
And the decks you kept so bright?

Seaman
For us, this bustling World.

Apollo
And the hold and cockpit out of sight,
Pitch dark and ill to smell,
Full of the friends of your delight?

Seaman
That was the pit of Hell!

4: THE TIDINGS

Seaman

How think of her, gone down, gone down!
How think of her decayed!
Or that the maker of that ship
Could let his creature fade!
More unbridled—unforgettable—was never creature made.

Gone by the board, those swinging spars
That seemed through storm to climb!
Sent down, like any cockle-shell
To tangle and to slime!

Did he that takes the narrow sounds
His monstrous hands between
Whirl her among his crazy locks
Into an eddy green?

Was it fog-bound, on a foul coast,
With not enough sea-room,
Or clear of land that she was lost,
Where hard gales can blow home?

Was it ice-floe in the sheeted foam
Ambushed her? or some ledge
Of false lights—or uncharted reef—
Broke her back upon its edge?

Perhaps even she was seized at last
Off an island precipice
With weariness, like man's weariness,
Of everything that is,

And stranded so, till the fresh flood
That through the channel swings
Crumbled that side like a sea-cliff,
As one crumbles little things.

Apollo
Her end was none, my lad, of these!
But first, if you must know,
Mutiny of those friends of yours
In irons down below.

Seaman
And how got you, Sir Merchantman,
This news—or bitter jest?

Apollo

“Sir, my trade is bringing light to all
From the East unto the West.

Nay, he that built your famous boat
From the old coasts to fly
And bear you ever out and on
Was I, and none but I!”

With that the sailor clutch'd the board;
Wine spilt out of his glass
Dripp'd to the floor; but not a sound
From his parch'd mouth would pass.

5: THE TALE OF APOLLO

Apollo
(musing)

There was no whisper out of space,
Scarcely a ripple ran
From thine incommensurable side
O dim leviathan,

When from afar I came in flight,
Rumours 'gainst thee to probe,
Leaving afar, engraved in shade,
Many a dreaming silver globe,
And approached thee on the middle sea
Wrapt in my darkling robe.

That Ship becalm'd, that triple-tier'd
Of Heaven and Earth and Hell,
Spread strange commotion as I near'd
Over the starred sea-swell.

Arcturus, I remember, shone—
That rebel! mirror'd bright,
And Saturn in his moat of moons
Glass'd in unsounded night:
The million-litten vault below
Breathed, in a slumber light.

As in a mountain forest-glade
When frosts ere dawn are brisk
And early spring boughs knitted close
Across the red moon's disk,

The rimy turf rings hard to hoof
Of light branch-feeding deer,
One sees upflushing some glen's brow
Camp-fire of mountaineer

Bivouack'd below; shag-bearded pines
All gnarled, loom down estranged
At wanton fire about their knees
With moon-fire interchanged—

So strange her gaunt dishevelled spars
Loomed down out of the sky;
Sails that had drunk Earth's soul immense
Hung pierced and slung awry,

My inwoven eternal blazonries
An idle tattered shame.
Was this the keen fire-spirited prow
Ark of the heaving flame,

That sun-stampt and illumined ship,
That keel of mystery,
Loosed, after toilings beyond count,
To plunge from the Daedalian mount
To stem futurity?

Now since mine own insignia badged
Each white celestial vail,
Rage seized me, like your emperor
Trajan—how goes the tale?—
Who on Tigris, twice defeated, tore
His gold wolves from the sail. . . .

And as from forge doors in her decks
Escaped, lulled, rose again,
Confused blasts—insolent uproar
From torch'd and naked men,
As 'twere some wind from Africa's
Tropic and demon'd fen.

Beast-like shadows ran and flashed;
Knotted at grips they swayed
And writhed. Unkennelled Hell was loose
And swarmed in escalade.

Hard-pressed my righteous stood at bay,
But when Hell's desperate brood
Saw me, they shouted, “Lord of Light,
Release!” Ruinous strew'd,
Fell on their faces on the decks
That breathless multitude.

Their leader, with inverted torch,
Stepp'd through them. Stern he comes,
Stirring their night-bound forest hearts
Like distant savage drums,

He cries aloud, “In this, in this—
Shaking his torch—is peace!
Not thou, tardy deliverer,
But I, confer release!

“Mighty shall be the golden flame!
Superb the funeral pyre
Of Heaven and Earth! . . . Kindle it Hell,
To glut this God's desire!”

He paused, with arms distorted, black,
Rear'd, long before the crash—
Like hollow oak that long outliveth
Coil of the lightning's lash;

Then fell. Majestic enemy,
Time with thy falling rang!
He, first of all the ship, was free
And fled without a pang.

Out of the throng'd expanse, skull-bare
Heads rose, and dropped again.
They quailed, they flinched before my gaze,
My light to them was pain!
Shadows of wreckage on the masts
Went streaming down the main.

Stooping above one cowering shape,
I raised it by the chin,
Upturned the pallid chronicle

And read the tale therein;
Read the thing purposed, by the bone,
The thing done, by the skin.

The lecher, wan, with eyelid lined,
Heavy-soul'd, torn with vice,
The murderous, with the flitting smile,
The drunkard, blue as ice;
Incomplete and colourable things,
Whose breathings must be lies.

All the sweet neighbours that men take
Within their breasts to thrive
Had blown like glass the body's case
Or stamped its clay alive.
I mused—(All hung upon a hair!)
Why need the dead survive?

In one face, stony, white and bleak,
Had passions scooped their bed;
Old lavas down the rigid cheek,
Meseemed, were still unshed;
I read the eyes of him athirst
Only for things beyond;
Whose strata, tossed in molten dreams,
Would never correspond
With things about him, for he willed
To die unparagoned.

Unseen above them so bowed down
Like beaten, sodden corn,
How cast them with derision back,
That throng of the forlorn,

Herding them with derision cold
As with a hand of steel,
Condemn them to endurance back
And still to think and feel,
While tears that might not fall for them
Did on my cheek congeal?

And in that pause their mournful hope,
Swelling like undertone
That dins within the wildest gale,
Utter'd aloud mine own.

Blindly they stretched their scarry hands,
Their piteous hands, to me:
“Since bonds we cannot bear, nor sight,
Be thou our sanctuary!
Open again the narrow gate—
Let us no longer be!”

Then lo! my righteous, whose wounds still
With bitter conflict bled,
Veer'd in their wrath, hoarsely unjust,
Arraigned me for these dead—
Spat on their own high bliss, and craved
To stand in Hades' stead!

Had all white-priested Egypt, then,
Not taught thee to perdure,
My Boat of Years? Lo, in man's dust
So mixed—so long impure—
Came light! I summoned up each soul
And round its neck secure
Fastened this token: “Fudge thyself!”
That justice might be sure.

Aloft, long since, I saw, had fled
That viewless sanhedrim
Of presences starry-cresseted
Who erst through waters dim
Had breathed the towering sails along,
My faithful seraphim.

I turned about in mournfulness
Steadfastly to behold
Bulwarks charred, ay, drunken masts
And slow deep-labouring hold,

And heeling of age-crumbled beams
And helmless spars divine—
Beheld the horror of those decks
Bloodied with mystic wine;
Even the little fluttering Genius reft
From the wrecked and flameless shrine,

And I cried to the white shape on the prow
Ascendant by my skill,

“O wingèd Ardour, headless now,
To sound what wild sea-victory
Swing'st there, triumphant still?
Why spared they wholly to shatter thee?
Thy rippling veils from feet to breasts
Winds from the future fill,

“But I know my handiwork outworn,
This bolted fabric vast
That disciplined through many wars
Man's courage in the past,—
And well, well, hath she served her Lord—
Unseaworthy at last!”

Then from ocean's frothy hazardous
Dream-element I caught
Her crew—every half-foundered soul
Wherewith her hold was fraught;

I sang them back to steady Earth
After their wanderings long,
Both quick and dead. Hangs on thy breast
The token of my song?

(He fumbled in his hairy breast,
Yes—the “Judge thyself” hung there)
Remembering then their mad outburst
Of quaint hope and despair,

Who deemed each puny life should last,
When nothing else escapes,

And the nations and the planets melt
Like breakers on the capes,

From laughter, from tears unquenchable,
Scarce able to forbear,
I smote the great hull to a ghost,—
The mighty masts to air. . . .

Seaman
What! is there not even left enough
Of that so noble craft,
A gang-board or a plank or two,
To lash into a raft?

Apollo

No, lad: you shall not ride in her;
But then you shall not weep;
Nor hear aloft her pipes of cheer
Nor the wail under the deep.

Yet sometimes, like the Northern Lights,
Hull-down—a radiance dim—
Loftier than air of Earth, up-sprung
To planes beyond its rim,

At hours when you are fever-struck
A phantom you may see,
Derelict—drifting out of hail—
Lost Immortality!

6: THE REBUKE

When the man knew the ship he loved
Had melted to a lie
He fronted him upon his feet
As who should Gods defy—
Syllables choked not in his throat,
He met him eye to eye.

Refreshed was he through long forborne
Anger. His spirit swelled
Manful—the stronger in his grief
By all that he had quelled.

Seaman

“This is your world-discovery!
This is the great landfall!
This coil of warehouses and quays
And taverns—this is all!
Well was it that we trusted thee!
Else—how had we achieved
Good luck? But then we had a friend
Wholly to be believed.

“This is the country we have gained,
This land of milk and balm!
For this our innocent took wounds

100

And died without a qualm,
Drawn on as by a ghost, that ends
Like a catspaw in a calm!

“Stay! I have heard, how in action's heat
A captain in his tent
Sealed a despatch; the rider died
That with the letter went;
The letter—saved—was found a blank!
Thine was the message sent,
Say, how wilt thou now make amends
For what was vainly spent?”

Fell off, fell off the enshrouding furs—
The beamwork of the room
To its last crevices was lit;
So terribly illume
The God's eyes—all his presence seemed
Outwardly to consume;

As though all burning sovranties
And throbbings of the mind,
Condensed into a single flame,
Across that board confined
Shot the human shade, a skeleton,
Clean on the wall behind
The man.

101

Apollo

Ah, fragment of my soul,
When I invented thee
To utter Mind, as guest and mate
Of a voiceless family,

And gave thee selfhood, barred with sleeps,
On yon ship's heaving shelves,
Selfhood that never can contrive—
However lightning-like it strive—
To escape, in its inmost, deepest dive
My Self beneath your selves,

I built through demiurgic powers
Myriad human hopes and fears,
And laboured at this shipwright's task
A hundred thousand years.

Think'st thou I framed a vessel vain
As earthly ships of wood?
Or that thy voyage never was
And wasted all your blood?
What! Hast not felt the invisible
Nor faintly understood?

Thou hast seen armies serve a name,
A rag, a tomb forlorn;
The tides of men obey a ghost,
The ghost of the unborn.

102

Thou hast felt passions' blindest roots
Quake up man's silly crust,
And rock thy reason from its state
And crack its towers to dust.

Thou hast seen Gods figure forth races,
Surging out of the vast
On crest of wave after wave, for aye
To sweep till time be past:—
Feel'st thou no wind behind those waves
All washing on one way?
Organs of the invisible
Yes, thou hast felt their sway!

Deem'st those old faceless images,
“Truth,” “Justice,” “Liberty,”
Heralding symbols thou employ'st?
They are employing thee!

Organs of the invisible
Yes, thou hast felt their sway,
The buried city of thy heart
Knows thou art less than they.

But now get back upon high seas
Unknown and drear indeed,
Thou, the adventure of my cloud,
The sailing of my seed!

103

Seaman

“Lord, I confess the things unseen
Closer the fountain-head
Than this wood table in my grasp
Or yonder loaf of bread;
But must we, ever-living one,
Go out when we are dead?
When the arms that held us close and dear,
When the love that we are used
To mingle with, are wrenched away
And the body's kiss is loosed?”

The God smiled, and with 'haviour soft
Leaning across the wine
Heavily took those shoulders young
Into his grasp divine.

Apollo

Hearken! I put you to the touch—
My son, my prodigal—
Since every brave song hath its close
Your own life, end it shall;
Yes, utterly shall meet an end.
Be it heroical!

And, born aboard, my rover stark,
Dread you to die aboard?
To lay you down beside your love
With the sunset on your sword? . . .

104

7: THE NEW SHIP

Apollo
(continuing)

Voyage after voyage, how else, how else
Should I Man's soul prepare
For the new venture, bolder yet,
On which he now must dare?

See! from the voyage whence you come now
You come not back the same!
Behind the door of your dull brow
Have sprung up doubt and blame—

Defiance of me. That I praise.
This once low-cabined pate
Hollows deep-chambered—is become
Tribunal—hall of state
For the assembled thrones of angels—roof
For an assize of fate!

Thou hast forgotten, whom I took
From lap of things inform
And flung to embraces of the sea
Caresses of the storm!
Now electrified, subtler-energied,
Starker-willed, battle-warm,
Thou comest, thou comest again to me! . . .
Son of tumult, gloom enorm,
I have new jeopardy for thee
And new eyes yet to form!

105

O wrestler into consciousness
Stand upon Earth! Away!
Long hath the journey been by night,
But roseate breaks the day;
Like a scroll I unfold the mountain-tops
And the windings of the bay.

Awake! Already on the cruise
Thou shalt not see its end.
Earth is the ship. Thou shalt have time
To find the Earth thy friend!

Seaman
Is there a hand upon her helm?

Apollo

Weigh thou thine own heart-fires,
Her wash of overwhelming dawns,
Her tide that never tires—
Her tranquil heave of seasons—flowers—
All that in thee aspires!

How like an eagle on the abyss
With outspread wing serene
She circles!—thought rolls under her,
The flash from the unseen.
Here's to her mission, wingèd rock,
Bluff-bowed and heavy keel'd
Through the night-watches swinging on
Still under orders sealed!

106

No crystal gives a peep, my son,
Of her errand far and surgy;
No witch's magic brew of sleep,
Nor smoke of thaumaturgy;

But, if thy former priestly ship
Failed of the port assigned,
The overwhelming globe takes on
Her altar-flame of mind.
See that the oils that feed the lamp
Fail not!

Seaman
What are those oils?

Apollo

Heroic, warm, abounding souls!
These are the sacred oils
On fragrant thin-flamed thymele
Lost on the deep like melody—
They who, as I My Self disperse
In them through the tragic universe,
Scatter themselves in toils.

And I shall stream into their life
Waking—sense after sense—
New understandings—endless, no,
But more and more intense.

107

Till joy in the Will that wafts the world
Buoyant as swimmers be
Makes thee divine, perhaps at last
Wholly delivers thee.

Seaman
The man exclaimed, “Delivers me!
How, if this death descends?
I am a man and not a race.
What matters, if self ends?
Speak! quick, my brain is worn and cold,
Little it comprehends.”

Apollo

“I shall tell thee, but as music tells. . . .
I too, like thee, have striven.
I too am launched from the profound
And past; I too am driven
In turn upon the stream of storms
From fountains beyond heaven;
To me, too, light is mystery,
The greater light half-given.
Ah, how make plain the goal obscure
Of thy journey but begun?”
Again the God smiled on the man
And asked, “Hast thou a son?”
He nodded. “And never yet hast guessed
That thou and he are one!

108

“Leaf shall of leaf become aware
On the self-same bough and stem,
Whose branches are murmuring everywhere
And the heaven floods all of them! . . .
Between you—between all that live—
Runs no gulf wide nor deep—
But a sheen'd veil, thinner than any veil,
Thin as the veil of sleep.

“Through the death-veil—looming silverly—
The self-veil's subtle strand,
Dawns it not? For that dawn thy heart
Hath eye—shall understand;
Before its seeing rock-walls melt
And cracks the mortal band.

“When once the whole consummate strength
Of thy slow-kindling mind
Can see in the heart's light at length
All strange sons of mankind,
Then Earth—that else were but a strait
Rock-sepulchre—is new:
Of what account to it is death?
Its glowing, through and through,
Moveth, alive with a God's breath,
Translucent as the dew!”

109

8: THE EMBARCATION

The last words in the rafters rang,
The bright haze sounded on;
Walls, air and shadows vibrant still,
The God himself was gone.
Was the thing dreamed? The Tavern wall
Solid? Still it rang.
Feverish he threw the lattice back;
Outside fluttered and sang
Trees of a tract of narrow yards
Behind dark tenements,
The nearest garden vacant—rope
Eked out its broken fence.
Naked it lay—brown mould bestrewn
With refuse crockery—yet
A pear-tree in its darkest nook
Bowered it in delicate
Whiteness. Beyond its further pale
Above a wall-flower bed
Women were hanging linen out—
One stoop'd a kerchief'd head.
In lime-trees idle rooks were cawing;
Even to his upper room
Came wafted from some distant plot
Fragrance like thyme's perfume;
Adrift from zigzag chimney-stacks
And ancient courtyards, soft
Blue smoke was breathed amongst the trees;

110

Dazzling clouds moved aloft;
Here, in the window where he stood
A cherry stretched its limb,
Half the diaphanous clusters clear
Enlumined, and half dim.
Green swift immortal Spring was here—
Spring in her lovely trim—
And whether it were ship or no,
The Earth seemed good to him.
Had he been Greek, or nurtured well
In lore of sages gone,
He would have felt her like that ship
Ascribed to Hieron,
Which, beside its deck-house luxuries
Of baths and bronzes fine,
Carried a pergola's green walk,
Shade-galleries of vine,
For awnings, fruit-espaliers
From buried urns in line.

Quitting the Inn, he made for home;
By many a cobbled wynd
Behung with mariner's wares, uphill
He strode with seething mind.
Above in the shady market-place
Unwonted silence reigned.
Under their patched umbrella stalls
Few flower-sellers remained;
But one, with old face like a map
Wrinkled by good and evil hap,
Stretched forth her palm. It rained.

111

Ah, yes, it rained—sudden acold
The sky loured overcast.
Soon pavements leapt with plashing drops;
And as he hasty passed
He heard a burst of chanted sound,
And glanced up at the vast
Shadow that over huddled roofs
Loomed, pinnacled and grey. . . .
The spired cathedral thunderously
And widely seemed to sway;
Like Earth upon her pilgrimage
Buffeting on from age to age,
It still was under way.

And on he trudged with peace at heart,
Rain pelting on his cheek,
But the shower half-ceased before he found
The bourn he seemed to seek,

A small house in a by-way dark
Beneath that April cloud,
And nigh the doorway he looked up
Keen-eyed. He could have vowed,
Yes, 'twas his wife stood shining there,
Yonder, where lintels dripped!
With soft, profound, familiar look
Low-laughing forth she slipped.

Her mute nod warned him (while her hair
Released bright drops that fell)
And bade him watch, but not disturb

112

A happy spectacle.
Now vapour'd were the cobble-stones;
The runnel where they stood
Fleeted adown the middle street,
Rays gleaming on its mud,
When lo! he saw a child, their son,
Squatted beside the flood,

The city's sole inhabitant
And lost to aught beside.
Wholly absorbed, aloof, intent;
Upon that ruffling tide

The boy embarked a faery ship
Of paper, white and gay;
And watched, with grave ecstatic smile,
Its glories whirled away.