That haughty purple is a bottle staring
Now dim, now flaming, on the distant dresser;
Bottles we have not touched… The room grows darker;
And from the corners creep delicious mice,
Pink-pawed and shadow-grey; then the avenger,
Puss from her slumber woken, scenting game.
I cannot keep my ears and thoughts intent,
Friend, on your drowsy pointless information;
And sink into the great beatitude
Your room has put upon me – till the word
‘Haunted…’ and here’s a trinity of candles!
The fourth has died. Oh I will close the book
Of my imagination, let the leaves
Fly back in helter-skelter to their covers,
Though all the mirrors still are brimming visions
For him that hath eyes to see – You did not say
Till then the room was haunted… Now am I
Prisoner of yours, well pleased and half afraid.
Drought
This day is long at dying, and tarries yet
Late in the harvest fields, until the sun
Brooding a fierce decline is gone at last,
Flinging broad arms across the western waters.
Softly the twilight breathes upon the earth,
Distils grey glimmer on the giant corn
And on the heavy sheaves, where flaming hours
Have gilt and browned and burned the dying pastures.
July, the soul of summer, the month imperial,
Dispenser opulent of all good things,
Is turned incendiary, stays not his fire;
And every night must languish until dawn,
Watching the moon bear hence that mocking gold,
That lovely spurious gold of her cool face
That lies aloof in distant contemplation.
Shall We Forget?
When we must go our ways no more together
After this shortening time that love has given
Our hearts to meet, remember that day of driven
And wayward rains, soft lulls in the wild weather,
And we on the road, full-hearted with mute lips
Masking the sorrow each should have of each
Once all things told. We saw the meadows reach
Wet arms about the river where it slips
To quietude, and dies within the lake.
These waters, where two swans wove silently
Their twin romance of summer’s harmony,
Heard your confession’s ardour, saw us make
The delicate vow of love, though you are bound
Now on another quest, and faithfully
Go to its call; so in desire we found
Immortal hope wrought with uncertainty.
In the Valley of Arques
Wave upon wave the forest moves, descending,
Stemmed in the valley by the sun-flushed corn;
Here in hay-harvest lie the meadows bending
Ripe tapestry of grasses that are shorn
Soon, all too soon; thus goes the vast long day
Seeing granaries grow and grass piled up in stooks
Beside the road to Arques where poplars sway
Drowsing above the prairie’s welling brooks.
The summer winds are with us, and their motion
Urges pale clouds to sunset, there for gilding,
And distant sounds come inland from the ocean,
Fade in the evening mists that earth is yielding
Wave on ethereal wave, and very white
The valley waits for each enfolding night.
The Siege
All day the crowds have battered at the gate
That frowns, unyielding to their anger still;
One solitary sentinel is left
At guard upon the walls, armed with resistance.
The tranquil morning of a weary spring
Woke to the sudden clamour of enemies
That surged rebellious, with implacable cries
From each calm corner of the far horizon,
Baying like ravenous hounds that thirst for slaughter.
At noon they wrestled with lurid mouths agape,
And sprang again in that glow of agony
The sun lets fall before his royal death.
Now in the evening has the sentinel,
Lonely survivor above the battle-ground,
Faltered, dismayed with languor in the struggle.
The hiding king, whose courtiers fled, now sees
Himself the weary prisoner of his castle,
Moves out upon the battlements, speaks sheer
To his last partisan; still the ordeal
Rages beneath them – and round my heart as well.
The castle is my heart, and I the prisoner
That moves towards the sentinel of his hope.
The lances of memory and apprehension
Are sharp about us in the darkening twilight;
But we have built our walls of stuff immortal,
Their roots go deep in soil of eternity –
Yield not, for life grows strong from such endurement!
So do we cry to each other, and face anew
The sweeping battalions of adversity.
Twelve Chimes upon the Clock
Twelve chimes upon the clock; in such an hour
Did Faustus clamour for his bartered soul
Till midnight rang, and God had heard him not.
At such a time was Macbeth murderer,
And heard the heavy wind proclaim his deed
In sombre rooms – The Dutchman out at sea
Departs again, fleeing with his despair
From the last love that might have won him peace.
Now from the shadow torn by vengeful moon
Falters Don Juan before the stern Commander,
Marching to hell, condemned for boasts of old –
The visionary ponders through the night
And sees their histories go by once more
Haunting, though sealed with death’s atonement now.
Horns in the Valley
This June the nights lay heavy until dawn;
Then did my heart devise in solitude
Of old romances – came an evocation
Across the valley mists at sound of horns
Deep in the forest springing. So again
When the last chord had died, Isolda rose
With pulsing signal of imperious arms
Uplifted in long tremolo of passion.
I saw the grasses bend before her lover,
Precipitate wraith that hurried to her calling;
And the lost echoes of their ardent voices
Grew in my sense with fading of the horns,
Sighing an ultimate song of death and love.
Then in the harbour of the risen moon
The dew lay solitary; no shadows there
Guarded these pale-faced lovers through the night,
And the lone tower was empty of its watcher.
But in that moment were they joined at trysting,
Come to the cadence of this midnight music,
And now are gone on silence desolate.
Here is the Autumn
Here is the autumn moving with gaunt strides
And moody gestures, rain is in the skies.
Within the little house are sighing dreams
That last no longer than a restless minute,
Yet ever again arise like those frail leaves
That are so still before the winds awake;
The tempest hurries them from the far forest
And from my apple-trees – leaves of regret.
There is no pattern to this autumn hour
Brooding in luminous grey uncertainty
Beneath a cloudy sky prepared for battle.
All things cry out to me, ‘Make ready now
Without farewell to leave the coming storms,
Hasten before the trembling apples fall;
The leaves are turning, and these days must end
When the last fruit is parted from the tree.’
Yet I would rather listen to the winds
That will encompass this decline, indeed
The ultimate farewell is very close.
If We Devise Tonight –
The misty night is breathing, it is time
Now before dawn to light forgotten candles
That wait to hear our last philosophies.
There is a singing in my heart, a crying
To all the muted restlessness of autumn –
If with replenished glasses we should speak,
Discourse upon such things, tell other thoughts,
Uncoiling the wound treasure of our fancies?
The moth with folded wings inside this room
And the wild bats of darkness, no other hosts
Will come to our devising; I hear you say:
The depths that we would touch are still unplumbed
As we descend the passage of our moods
Sowing our thoughts upon the silence – No,
We shall not gather truth save in our dreams
That waking end upon the word ‘perhaps.’
Adventurer
When we go hence will all our memories
Linger or hasten in the hurrying hour,
Shall they take up the burden of our moods,
Carry dead days towards us as we go,
Fled from the flying hours that were our friends?
Storms lie around us – shall we ever touch
The stationary beacon of far flames
Poised in the distance of an unknown sea?
Adventurer born so shall adventurer end
In hot uncertainty of each new hazard.
The New Friend
‘Good-Night’ you said to me, and down the street
Went the uncertain cadence of your footsteps
Slowly at first, then was the night between us,
So did I turn, and followed in my mind
All the perplexities that would attend you
For company upon the little stair
You have not known as yet, for you had said
‘I will not keep my weariness at home,
Rather pace through the night, and contemplate
In some new room the face of my despair –’
I saw your hours go by in loneliness
With saddening chimes of clocks; the crooked roofs
Would lie before you at the opened window,
Calm in thee dawn that should engender peace
Could you but curb your spirit’s revolution.
There had been songs before our midnight’s parting,
Adventures told, and future plans to be –
A southern journey far from all of these
People that drink with one till closing-time,
Voicing their numerous melancholies – then
The picture mocked us from the café walls,
Seemed as the laughter of departed companies.
I met you yesterday… Tonight as yet
Is blue before the lamps of seven o’clock;
I wait in the crowd that gathers, see crisp leaves
Slowly descend upon the Boulevard,
And think of country woods where dew is cold.
Here in this long September of the town
The lights are lit before our eyes shall meet
Again, before our voices ring together
Until they cease on echoing farewells.
We are two strangers come from distant places,
Driven on different tides whose turning currents
Have now assembled us – what purpose hides
In meetings that so soon must be put by,
Stored up with other memories in the mind?
I argue thus, while neighbouring tables fill
With those unconscious of the hour’s suspense
That has drawn out my thoughts till you come by.
Sonnet
Not till the fruit is gold upon the tree,
Not till the flowers die and leaves are falling
Lightly within the fields, and swallows calling
Their summer broods about them to the sea;
Calling their April lovers to make ready
For the perpetual journey of each year;
Not till the days grow dark – ah do not fear
That I should leave you. As each hour the steady
Warm flush of summer makes the earth immense
In utter loveliness within our sense
So shall the treasure ripen of my love.
But for the waning days, ah sweet, prepare
A passionless farewell, no cry or tear
In those far times shall my departing move.
The Spiders Weave
The summer days were harsh with drought;
On earth there was no movement left
Beyond the apple’s fall, when out
Of those dry husks the spiders crept
Listless with weaving. In my mind
It seemed that other spiders ranged,
Subconscious thoughts that struggle blind,
Laced with desires – they interchanged
For dreams the restraint our solitude
Enforces in the waking hours.
A vision grew, of one that stood
Alone upon the sunset’s towers,
Warning with prophecies. He told
Of weary heart all dry with waiting;
How in an hour when life is cold
Life’s enemy is contemplating
A cunning ruse and casts his snare,
The heart must ever be aware,
Stern to the danger. Far beyond
The vision of that mystic wall
Rang out imperious accents: take
All that tomorrow’s fate lets fall,
So that maybe some wind will shake
Things better far than apples green
Down to your waiting hands – I dreamt;
The spiders wove again their keen
Dry webs, and stalked the earth unkempt.
§
PROVENCE
Southward
Three passengers around a weary fly…
The vapid fly attacks the travellers
Buzzing the story of its own loneliness.
Drowsing we travel, see the autumn velvets
Lone of all stars outside – the hardy light,
Our luggage strapped, sophisticated, neat;
Pictures of Switzerland, Rivieras luring
To those who contemplate that holiday;
The lace above the seats, the dreary lace
That mocks God knows how many a man’s insomnias,
Stemming his memories with interruptions.
Thoughts fret and gnaw me – through the corridors
Are blown the little empty winds of night
Bearing unrest and hunger – after these
At length tomorrow some dark line of trees
Sprung from the dawn. Propitiating South,
Provence shall meet us on her white highroads
Hot with the suns of yesterdays – ah cypress,
Already rising in the memory,
Cypress of plains I greet you with my longing,
Now in this hour so very still outside
The train must seem as flitting of the moth
Hung for a moment at the station’s light;
And in the carriage one is patient, numb,
And two are still imprisoned in their sleep
Dreaming impossibly a thousand things…
Alone the fly is conscious of its life.
Beaucaire
High in this garden set against the south
The autumn trees are still about the towers,
Bowed by some vanished wind of winter hours
We have
not known, and at the river’s mouth
An estuary awaits the quiet sea.
There is a chime of bells like waters falling,
The circling pigeons flowing to their calling
Wheel through the sun. A pale monotony
Of clouds departing from the day is here;
And from the southern mists the very clear
White faces of the ruins rise again –
But I am destitute of phantasies
Wherewith to people their lost destinies,
Sufficient now this hour above the plain.
At Les Baux
It is the hour of meditation – listen,
As thought grows still the very bells are still
Upon the folded flocks; beneath this hill
Silent the road turns grey with night. Ah hasten
You little winds of evening and be gone;
Restless are you with fears, ghosts of suspense
Before the moon surrounds you with immense
Pale shrouds of light. This crescent moon alone
Moves in the fading ocean of the sky,
Save where in sorrowful west the colours die
As if eternally – their sheaves are pressed
In flames together, and the perpetual rocks
Pale ruins now, asleep as other flocks
Deep in the silence of the centuries rest.
To Vaucluse Came Petrarch and Laura
Follow this valley to the mountain’s edge
Hung in immensity above the stream;
There in your climbing see the imperious ledge
With brooding castle crowned, where only a gleam
Of springtime fills the vacant ruins now,
And every summer seals the fountain’s rush:
There was a time of pilgrims come to bow
And dip their faith in the miraculous gush.
Such fervent days as these Petrarch withdrew
With Laura dreaming, both fled from zealous life;
Each year upon this rock they met anew