University of Virginia Library

Town-dwellers think that Spring begins in May;
We of the country know a certain day
In February, when the shy young year
Dreams her first dream of love. The skies appear
Not cloudless with the steely gleam of frost,
But tender, by soft-footed armies crossed,
Vaunt-couriers of Queen Spring. The sleeping earth
Remembers the green things that wait for birth
In her wide bosom; and the thrushes stir
To rouse the laggard morning earlier.

On such a day, on such a happy day,
A sevenfold party went on holiday
Along the broad Downs looking o'er the sea
From Bourne to Beauchef and the Charles' three,
The Titans' turrets, on whose grassy knees
Far down the curled red foxes sleep at ease,
And though they hear far off the huntsman's hallo,
Heed nothing, for they know no hound can follow.

There coming, on the grassy edge they stayed,
Thrilled with the glory of the ocean, laid
A sapphire floor beneath them, and the gleam
Of snowy cliffs to westward, where the stream
Of Cuckmere stealeth to her lover's bed
Betwixt the Seven Cliffs and Seaford Head.
Silent they stood awhile, and watched the rise
Of two great falcons wheeling up the skies
In Babylonian gyres. And watched the mew
Float from the grass-edge on to the void blue,
Quietly spreading noiseless plumes of snow
To join the unseen screaming flock below.
Then one brake silence with a wistful sigh:
“Ten years of life for one day's wings to fly!
Ah, the delights, consider! Ah, the joys!
One moment to stand thus; the next to poise
On the invisible unresisting air
Empty and deep beneath you, and not care!”
Echoed another: “Aye, what loss is ours
That Man, with all his thoughts and works and powers,
Who might of wingèd kind have taken birth,
Has ris'n among the beasts of middle earth!
Glorious he were, if his long heritage,
His ancestry of poet, hero, sage,
His dreams, ambitions, raptures and desires,
Had sprung and passed to him from eagle sires.
What touch diviner his great words had ta'en,
Truth, Freedom, Honour, Love, from tongue and brain
Bred to the fearless mastery of wings,
'Mid clouds and snows and all ethereal things!
What dreams had poets dreamed! and priests what prayer
Uplifted! In his songs what sweetness were!
A Lucifer unfallen Man had been,
And none were ape-like, mischievous, or mean.”
“Ah, think you,” cried a third, “that such a choice
Were ever his? Had creature ever voice
So infinitely fateful for his kind?
Some first of creeping monsters, dumb and blind,
Made he some great refusal, whence began
The inveterate vulgarity of Man?”
Then one, a poet: “I have found for you
A history most fond and yet most true,
Much to this purpose, for the tale is hight
‘The Choice of Adam.’ Hidden long from sight
Within the pale leaves of a palimpsest,
Ev'n as a ghost not wholly laid to rest
Moves shadowy in a house of living men,
So the blurred script may now be read again
Athwart the faded lines of later writ.
Deciphered thus, I have re-shapen it,
Turning harsh Latin to an English lay.”

Well suited this their mood of holiday
And dreams of Springtide; and they sought a place
Sun-warmed and windless on the chalk-cliff face.
There is a hold, like a high gallery, hung
Below the cliff-top, where a rock, down-flung
From breaking scars, has rested and grown hoar.
Above, the white walls tower; and before,
Green-breasted Beauchef bows on naked knees
O'er snowy feet kissed by the fawning seas.

Rich is the eye-feast from that eagle-nest;
Ruin of earth's foundations, crumbling crest
And turret toppling, ledge o'erleaning ledge,
Rampart and rock-face, till a far-off edge,
Sheer as a bastion built of giant hands,
Unruinous beyond the ruin stands.
A passage, narrow as a turret-stair,
Leads downward to this refuge whoso dare
Face footless crags and white-lipped waves below.
Thither one led them with sure foot and slow;
And seated, quiet as a small grey flock
Of sunning sea-birds on a lonely rock,
In glad tranquillity they heard this tale,
Like new bright fire kindled from ashes pale.