Some strange new thing she can not tell
Some mystic danaan spell
When the wind bloweth merrily
Maketh her long hands tremble some
Her lips part, tho no words come
When the wind bloweth merrily
Her hair is brown as the leaves that fall
She hath no villeiny at all
When the wind bloweth merrily
When the wind bloweth my Lady’s hair
I bow with a murmured prayer
For the wind that bloweth merrily
With my lady far, the days be long
For her homing I’d clasp the song
That the wind bloweth merrily
Wind song: this is my Lady’s praise
What be lipped words of all men’s lays
When the wind bloweth merrily
To my Lady needs I send the best
Only the wind’s song serves that behest.
For the wind bloweth merrily.
The Lees
There is a mellow twilight ’neath the trees
Soft and hallowed as is a thought of thee,
Low soundeth a murmurous minstrelsy
A mingled evensong beneath the breeze
Each creeping, leaping chorister hath ease
To sing, to whirr his heart out, joyously;
Wherefor take thou my laboured litany
Halting, slow pulsed it is, being the lees
Of song wine that the master bards of old
Have left for me to drink thy glory in.
Yet so these crimson cloudy lees shall hold
Some faint fragrance of that former wine
O Love, my White-flower-o-the-Jasamin
Grant that the kiss upon the cup be thine.
Per Saecula
Where have I met thee? Oh Love tell me where
In the aisles of the past were thy lips known
To me, as where your breath as roses blown
Across my cheek? Where through your tangled hair
Have I seen the eyes of my desire bear
Hearts crimson unto my heart’s heart? As mown
Grain of the gold brown harvest from seed sown
Bountifully amid spring’s emeralds fair
So is our reaping now: But speak that spring
Whisper in the murmurous twilight where
I met thee mid the roses of the past
Where you gave your first kiss in the last,
Whisper the name thine eyes were wont to bear
The mystic name whereof my heart shall sing.
Shadow
Darkness hath descended upon the earth
And there are no stars
The sun from zenith to nadir is fallen
And the thick air stifleth me.
Sodden go the hours
Yea the minutes are molten lead, stinging and heavy
I saw her yesterday.
And lo, there is no time
Each second being eternity.
Peace! trouble me no more.
Yes, I know your eyes clear pools
Holding the summer sky within their depth
But trouble me not
I saw HER yesterday.
Peace! your hair is spun gold fine wrought and wondrous
But trouble me not
I saw her yester e’en.
Darkness hath filled the earth at her going
And the wind is listless and heavy
When will the day come: when will the sun
Be royal in bounty
From nadir to zenith up-leaping?
For lo! his steeds are weary, not having beheld her
Oh that the sun steeds were wise
Arising to seek her!
The sun sleepeth in Orcus.
From zenith to nadir is fallen his glory
Is fallen, is fallen his wonder
I saw her yesterday
Since when there is no sun.
ONE WHOSE SOUL WAS
SO FULL OF ROSE
LEAVES STEEPED IN
GOLDEN WINE THAT THERE
WAS NO ROOM THEREIN
FOR ANY VILLEINY—
The Banners
My wandring brother wind wild bloweth now
October whirleth leaves in dusty air
September’s yellow gold that mingled fair
With green and rose tint on each maple bough
Sulks into deeper browns and doth endow
The wood-way with a tapis broidered rare—And where
King oak tree his brave panoply did wear
Of quaint device and colored
The dawn doth show him but a shorn stave now.
If where the wood stood in its pageantry
A castle holyday’d to greet its queen
Now but the barren banner poles be seen
Yea that the ruined walls stand ruefully
I make no grief, nor do I feel this teen
Sith thou mak’st autumn as spring’s noon to me.
“To draw back into the soul of things.” PAX
Meseemeth that ’tis sweet this wise to lie
Somewhile quite parted from the stream of things
Watching alone the clouds’ high wanderings
As free as they are in some wind-free sky
While naught but thoughts of thee as clouds glide by
Or come as faint blown wind across the strings
Of this odd lute of mine imaginings
And make it whisper me quaint things and high
Such peace as this would make death’s self most sweet
Could I but know, Thou maiden of the sun,
That thus thy presence would go forth with me
Unto that shadow land where ages’ feet
Have wandered, and where life’s dreaming done
Love may dream on unto eternity.
Green Harping
Thou that wearest the doeskins’ hue
“Hallew!” “Hallew!”
Tho the elfin horn shall call to you
’true be true
By the violets in thy leaf brown hair
’ware be ware
Tho the elfin knights shall find thee fair
’ware too fair
Tho hosts of night shall hail thee queen
In the Eringreen
The elf old queen hath sorrow seen
and teen much teen
Tho the shadow lords shall marshall their might
afore thy sight
Hold thou thy heart for my heart’s right
in their despite
Tho night shall dwell in thy child eyes
’wise be wise
That thy child heart to mine emprise
’plies replies
For night shall flee from the fore-sun’s flame
’shame in shame
Tho my heart to thee embeggared came
’same ’tis the same
That lordship o’er the light doth hold
’bold quite bold
And thee to my kingdom I enfold
By spell of old.
From another sonnet.
MY FACE
AS LITTLE WINDS THAT DREAM
BUT DARE IN NO WISE TELL THEIR
DREAM ALOUD-
Li Bel Chasteus
That castle stands the highest in the Land
Far seen and mighty
—Of the great hewn stones
What shall I say?
And deep foss-way
That far beneath us bore of old
A swelling turbid sea
Hill-born and torrent-wise
Unto the fields below, where
Staunch villein and wandered
Burgher held the land and tilled
Long labouring for gold of wheat grain
And to see the beards come forth
For barley’s even-tide.
But circle arched above the hum of life
We dwelt, amid the
Ancient boulders
Gods had hewn
And druids runed
Unto the birth most wondrous
That had grown
A mighty fortress while the world had slept
And we awaited in the shadows there
While mighty hands had laboured sightlessly
And shaped this wonder ’bove the ways of men.
Meseems we could not see the great green waves
Nor rocky shore by Tintagoel
From this our hold
But came faint murmuring as undersong
E’en as the burgher’s hum arose
And died as faint wind melody
Beneath our gates.
The Arches
That wind-swept castle hight with thee alone
Above the dust and rumble of the earth:
It seemeth to mine heart another birth
To date the mystic time, whence I have grown
Unto new mastery of dreams and thrown
Old shadows from me as of lesser worth.
For ‘neath the arches where the winds make mirth
We two may drink a lordship all our own.
Yea alway had I longed to hold real dreams
Not laboured things we make beneath the sun
But such as come unsummoned in our sleep,
And this above thine other gifts, meseems
Thou’st given me. So when the day is done
Thou meet me ’bove the world in this our keep.
Era Venuta
Some times I feel thy cheek against my face
Close pressing, soft as is the South’s first breath
That all the soft small earth things summoneth
To spring in woodland and in meadow space
Yea sometimes in a dusty man-filled place
Meseemeth somewise thy hair wandereth
Across my eyes as mist that halloweth
My sight and shutteth out the world’s disgrace
That is apostasy of them that fail
Denying that God doth God’s self disclose
In every beauty that they will not see.
Naethless when this sweetness comes to me
I know thy thought doth pass as elfin “Hail”
That beareth thee, as doth the wind a rose.
The Tree
I stood still and was a tree amid the wood
Knowing the truth of things unseen before
Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old
That grew elm-oak amid the wold
‘Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated and been brought within
Unto the hearth of their hearts’ home
That they might do this wonder thing.
Naethless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many new things understood
That were rank folly to my head before.
Being before the vision of Li Bel Chasteus
“E’en as lang syne from shadowy castle towers
“Thy striving eyes did wander to discern
“Which compass point my homeward way should be.”
For you meseem some strange strong soul of wine …
Hair some hesitating wind shall blow backward as some brown haze
That drifteth from thy face as fog that shifteth from fore some
Hidden light and slow discloseth that the light is fair—
Thu Ides Til
O thou of Maydes all most wonder sweet
That art my comfort eke and my solace
Whan thee I find in any wolde or place
I doon thee reverence as is most meet.
To cry thy prayse I nill nat be discreet
Thou hast swich debonairite and grace
Swich gentyl smile thy alderfayrest face
To run thy prayse I ne hold not my feet.
My Lady, tho I ne me hold thee fro
Nor streyve with thee by any game to play
But offer only thee myn own herte reede
I prey by love that thou wilt kindness do
And that thou keep my song by night and day
As shadow blood from myn own herte y-blede.
L’Envoi
Full oft in musty, quaint lined book of old
Have I found rhyming for some maiden quaint
In fashioned chançonnette and teen’s compleynt
The sweet-scent loves of chivalry be told
With fair conceit and flower manifold
Right subtle tongued in complex verse restraint
Against their lyric might my skill’s but faint.
My flower’s outworn, the later rhyme runs cold
Naethless, I loving cease me not to sing
Love song was blossom to the searching breeze
E’er Paris’ rhyming had availed to bring
Helen and Greece for towered Troy’s disease
Wherefor, these petals to the winds I fling
’Vail they or fail they as the winds shall please.
The Wind
“I would go forth into the night” she saith.
The night is very cold beneath the moon
’Twere meet, my Love that thou went forth at noon
For now the sky is cold as very death.
And then she drew a little sobbing breath
“Without a little lonely wind doth crune
And calleth me with wandered elfin rune
That all true wind-born children summoneth
Dear, hold me closer! so, till it is past
Nay I am gone the while. Await!”
And I await her here for I have understood.
Yet held I not this very wind—bound fast
Within the castle of my soul I would
For very faintness at her parting, die.
Sancta Patrona
Domina Caelae
Out of thy purity
Saint Hilda pray for me.
Lay on my forehead
The hands of thy blessing.
Saint Hilda pray for me
Lay on my forehead
Cool hands of thy blessing
Out of thy purity
Lay on my forehead
White hands of thy blessing.
Virgo caelicola
Ora pro nobis.