Yet I would rather give up others more sweet, 30
With no meaning, than this bitter one.
I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray
And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing;
Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait
For what I should, yet never can, remember: 35
No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush
Of Lad’s-love, or Old Man, no child beside,
Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate;
Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end.
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THE SIGNPOST
The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,
And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,
Rough, long grasses keep white with frost
At the hilltop by the finger-post;
The smoke of the traveller’s-joy is puffed 5
Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.
I read the sign. Which way shall I go?
A voice says: You would not have doubted so
At twenty. Another voice gentle with scorn
Says: At twenty you wished you had never been born. 10
One hazel lost a leaf of gold
From a tuft at the tip, when the first voice told
The other he wished to know what ‘twould be
To be sixty by this same post. ‘You shall see,’
He laughed – and I had to join his laughter – 15
‘You shall see; but either before or after,
Whatever happens, it must befall,
A mouthful of earth to remedy all
Regrets and wishes shall freely be given;
And if there be a flaw in that heaven 20
‘Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may be
To be here or anywhere talking to me,
No matter what the weather, on earth,
At any age between death and birth, –
To see what day or night can be, 25
The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,
Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring, –
With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,
Standing upright out in the air
Wondering where he shall journey, O where?’ 30
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AFTER RAIN
The rain of a night and a day and a night
Stops at the light
Of this pale choked day. The peering sun
Sees what has been done.
The road under the trees has a border new 5
Of purple hue
Inside the border of bright thin grass:
For all that has
Been left by November of leaves is torn
From hazel and thorn 10
And the greater trees. Throughout the copse
No dead leaf drops
On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,
At the wind’s return:
The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed 15
Are thinly spread
In the road, like little black fish, inlaid,
As if they played.
What hangs from the myriad branches down there
So hard and bare 20
Is twelve yellow apples lovely to see
On one crab-tree,
And on each twig of every tree in the dell
Uncountable
Crystals both dark and bright of the rain 25
That begins again.
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INTERVAL
Gone the wild day:
A wilder night
Coming makes way
For brief twilight.
Where the firm soaked road 5
Mounts and is lost
In the high beech-wood
It shines almost.
The beeches keep
A stormy rest, 10
Breathing deep
Of wind from the west.
The wood is black,
With a misty steam.
Above, the cloud pack 15
Breaks for one gleam.
But the woodman’s cot
By the ivied trees
Awakens not
To light or breeze. 20
It smokes aloft
Unwavering:
It hunches soft
Under storm’s wing.
It has no care 25
For gleam or gloom:
It stays there
While I shall roam,
Die, and forget
The hill of trees, 30
The gleam, the wet,
This roaring peace.
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THE OTHER
The forest ended. Glad I was
To feel the light, and hear the hum
Of bees, and smell the drying grass
And the sweet mint, because I had come
To an end of forest, and because 5
Here was both road and inn, the sum
Of what’s not forest. But ‘twas here
They asked me if I did not pass
Yesterday this way? ‘Not you? Queer.’
‘Who then? and slept here?’ I felt fear. 10
I learnt his road and, ere they were
Sure I was I, left the dark wood
Behind, kestrel and woodpecker,
The inn in the sun, the happy mood
When first I tasted sunlight there. 15
I travelled fast, in hopes I should
Outrun that other. What to do
When caught, I planned not. I pursued
To prove the likeness, and, if true,
To watch until myself I knew. 20
I tried the inns that evening
Of a long gabled high-street grey,
Of courts and outskirts, travelling
An eager but a weary way,
In vain. He was not there. Nothing 25
Told me that ever till that day
Had one like me entered those doors,
Save once. That time I dared: ‘You may
Recall’ – but never-foamless shores
Make better friends than those dull boors. 30
Many and many a day like this
Aimed at the unseen moving goal
And nothing found but remedies
For all desire. These made not whole;
They sowed a new desire, to kiss 35
Desire’s self beyond control,
Desire of desire. And yet
Life stayed on within my soul.
One night in sheltering from the wet
I quite forgot I could forget. 40
A customer, then the landlady
Stared at me. With a kind of smile
They hesitated awkwardly:
Their silence gave me time for guile.
Had anyone called there like me, 45
I asked. It was quite plain the wile
Succeeded. For they poured out all.
And that was naught. Less than a mile
Beyond the inn, I could recall
He was like me in general. 50
He had pleased them, but I less.
I was more eager than before
To find him out and to confess,
To bore him and to let him bore.
I could not wait: children might guess 55
I had a purpose, something more
That made an answer indiscreet.
One girl’s caution made me sore,
Too indignant even to greet
That other had we chanced to meet. 60
I sought then in solitude.
The wind had fallen with the night; as still
The roads lay as the ploughland rude,
Dark and naked, on the hi
ll.
Had there been ever any feud 65
‘Twixt earth and sky, a mighty will
Closed it: the crocketed dark trees,
A dark house, dark impossible
Cloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peace
Held on an everlasting lease: 70
And all was earth’s, or all was sky’s;
No difference endured between
The two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;
A marshbird whistled high unseen;
The latest waking blackbird’s cries 75
Perished upon the silence keen.
The last light filled a narrow firth
Among the clouds. I stood serene,
And with a solemn quiet mirth,
An old inhabitant of earth. 80
Once the name I gave to hours
Like this was melancholy, when
It was not happiness and powers
Coming like exiles home again,
And weaknesses quitting their bowers, 85
Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,
Moments of everlastingness.
And fortunate my search was then
While what I sought, nevertheless,
That I was seeking, I did not guess. 90
That time was brief: once more at inn
And upon road I sought my man
Till once amid a tap-room’s din
Loudly he asked for me, began
To speak, as if it had been a sin, 95
Of how I thought and dreamed and ran
After him thus, day after day:
He lived as one under a ban
For this: what had I got to say?
I said nothing. I slipped away. 100
And now I dare not follow after
Too close. I try to keep in sight,
Dreading his frown and worse his laughter.
I steal out of the wood to light;
I see the swift shoot from the rafter 105
By the inn door: ere I alight
I wait and hear the starlings wheeze
And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.
He goes: I follow: no release
Until he ceases. Then I also shall cease. 110
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THE MOUNTAIN CHAPEL
Chapel and gravestones, old and few,
Are shrouded by a mountain fold
From sound and view
Of life. The loss of the brook’s voice
Falls like a shadow. All they hear is 5
The eternal noise
Of wind whistling in grass more shrill
Than aught as human as a sword,
And saying still:
‘‘Tis but a moment since man’s birth 10
And in another moment more
Man lies in earth
For ever; but I am the same
Now, and shall be, even as I was
Before he came; 15
Till there is nothing I shall be.’
Yet there the sun shines after noon
So cheerfully
The place almost seems peopled, nor
Lacks cottage chimney, cottage hearth: 20
It is not more
In size than is a cottage, less
Than any other empty home
In homeliness.
It has a garden of wild flowers 25
And finest grass and gravestones warm
In sunshine hours
The year through. Men behind the glass
Stand once a week, singing, and drown
The whistling grass 30
Their ponies munch. And yet somewhere,
Near or far off, there’s a man could
Be happy here,
Or one of the gods perhaps, were they
Not of inhuman stature dire, 35
As poets say
Who have not seen them clearly; if
At sound of any wind of the world
In grass-blades stiff
They would not startle and shudder cold 40
Under the sun. When gods were young
This wind was old.
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BIRDS’ NESTS
The summer nests uncovered by autumn wind,
Some torn, others dislodged, all dark,
Everyone sees them: low or high in tree,
Or hedge, or single bush, they hang like a mark.
Since there’s no need of eyes to see them with 5
I cannot help a little shame
That I missed most, even at eye’s level, till
The leaves blew off and made the seeing no game.
‘Tis a light pang. I like to see the nests
Still in their places, now first known, 10
At home and by far roads. Boys knew them not,
Whatever jays and squirrels may have done.
That leaves and berries fell into:
Once a dormouse dined there on hazel-nuts, 15
And grass and goose-grass seeds found soil and grew.
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THE MANOR FARM
The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills
Ran and sparkled down each side of the road
Under the catkins wagging in the hedge.
But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun;
Nor did I value that thin gilding beam 5
More than a pretty February thing
Till I came down to the old Manor Farm,
And church and yew-tree opposite, in age
Its equals and in size. The church and yew
And farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness. 10
The air raised not a straw. The steep farm roof,
With tiles duskily glowing, entertained
The midday sun; and up and down the roof
White pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one.
Three cart-horses were looking over a gate 15
Drowsily through their forelocks, swishing their tails
Against a fly, a solitary fly.
The Winter’s cheek flushed as if he had drained
Spring, Summer, and Autumn at a draught
And smiled quietly. But ‘twas not Winter – 20
Rather a season of bliss unchangeable
Awakened from farm and church where it had lain
Safe under tile and thatch for ages since
This England, Old already, was called Merry.
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AN OLD SONG I
I was not apprenticed nor ever dwelt in famous Lincolnshire;
I’ve served one master ill and well much more than seven year;
And never took up to poaching as you shall quickly find;
But ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.
I roamed where nobody had a right but keepers and squires, and there 5
I sought for nests, wild flowers, oak sticks, and moles, both far and near,
And had to run from farmers, and learnt the Lincolnshire song:
‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’
I took those walks years after, talking with friend or dear,
Or solitary musing; but when the moon shone clear 10
I had no joy or sorrow that could not be expressed
By ‘‘Tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’
Since then I’ve thrown away a chance to fight a gamekeeper;
And I less often trespass, and what I see or hear
Is mostly from the road or path by day: yet still I sing: 15
‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’
For if I am contente
d, at home or anywhere,
Or if I sigh for I know not what, or my heart beats with some fear,
It is a strange kind of delight to sing or whistle just:
‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’ 20
And with this melody on my lips and no one by to care,
Indoors, or out on shiny nights or dark in open air,
I am for a moment made a man that sings out of his heart:
‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’
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AN OLD SONG II
The sun set, the wind fell, the sea
Was like a mirror shaking:
The one small wave that clapped the land
A mile-long snake of foam was making
Where tide had smoothed and wind had dried 5
The vacant sand.
A light divided the swollen clouds
And lay most perfectly
Like a straight narrow footbridge bright
That crossed over the sea to me; 10
And no one else in the whole world
Saw that same sight.
I walked elate, my bridge always
Just one step from my feet:
A robin sang, a shade in shade: 15
And all I did was to repeat:
‘I’ll go no more a-roving
With you, fair maid.’
The sailors’ song of merry loving
With dusk and sea-gull’s mewing 20
Mixed sweet, the lewdness far outweighed
By the wild charm the chorus played:
‘I’ll go no more a-roving
With you, fair maid:
A-roving, a-roving, since roving’s been my ruin, 25
I’ll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid.’
In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid –
Mark well what I do say –
In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid
And she was a mistress of her trade: 30
I’ll go no more a-roving