with many a tuneful tender thing,Till stars were weak, and dancing hours outrun.
And then were threads of matin music spun
In trial tones as he pursued his way:
“This is a morn,” he murmured, “well begun:
This strain to Ken will count when I am clay!”
And count it did; till, caught by echoing lyres,
It spread to galleried naves and mighty quires.
“I SOMETIMES THINK”
(FOR F. E. H.)
I sometimes think as here I sit
Of things I have done,
Which seemed in doing not unfit
To face the sun:
Yet never a soul has paused a whit
On such – not one.
There was that eager strenuous press
To sow good seed;
There was that saving from distress
In the nick of need;
There were those words in the wilderness:
Who cared to heed?
Yet can this be full true, or no?
For one did care,
And, spiriting into my house, to, fro,
Like wind on the stair,
Cares still, heeds all, and will, even though
I may despair.
JEZREEL
ON ITS SEIZURE BY THE ENGLISH UNDER ALLENBY, SEPTEMBER 1918
Did they catch as it were in a Vision at shut of the day —
When their cavalry smote through the ancient Esdraelon Plain,
And they crossed where the Tishbite stood forth in his enemy’s way —
His gaunt mournful Shade as he bade the King haste off amain?
On war-men at this end of time – even on Englishmen’s eyes —
Who slay with their arms of new might in that long-ago place,
Flashed he who drove furiously?.. Ah, did the phantom arise
Of that queen, of that proud Tyrian woman who painted her face?
Faintly marked they the words “Throw her down!” rise from Night eerily,
Spectre-spots of the blood of her body on some rotten wall?
And the thin note of pity that came: “A King’s daughter is she,”
As they passed where she trodden was once by the chargers’ footfall?
Could such be the hauntings of men of to-day, at the cease
Of pursuit, at the dusk-hour, ere slumber their senses could seal?
Enghosted seers, kings – one on horseback who asked “Is it peace?”.
Yea, strange things and spectral may men have beheld in Jezreel!
A JOG-TROT PAIR
Who were the twain that trod this track
So many times together
Hither and back,
In spells of certain and uncertain weather?
Commonplace in conduct they
Who wandered to and fro here
Day by day:
Two that few dwellers troubled themselves to know here.
The very gravel-path was prim
That daily they would follow:
Borders trim:
Never a wayward sprout, or hump, or hollow.
Trite usages in tamest style
Had tended to their plighting.
“It’s just worth while,
Perhaps,” they had said. “And saves much sad good-nighting.”
And petty seemed the happenings
That ministered to their joyance:
Simple things,
Onerous to satiate souls, increased their buoyance.
Who could those common people be,
Of days the plainest, barest?
They were we;
Yes; happier than the cleverest, smartest, rarest.
“THE CURTAINS NOW ARE DRAWN”
(SONG)
The curtains now are drawn,
And the spindrift strikes the glass,
Blown up the jagged pass
By the surly salt sou’-west,
And the sneering glare is gone
Behind the yonder crest,
While she sings to me:
“O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine.”
I stand here in the rain,
With its smite upon her stone,
And the grasses that have grown
Over women, children, men,
And their texts that “Life is vain”;
But I hear the notes as when
Once she sang to me:
“O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine.”
“ACCORDING TO THE MIGHTY WORKING”
When moiling seems at cease
In the vague void of night-time,
And heaven’s wide roomage stormless
Between the dusk and light-time,
And fear at last is formless,
We call the allurement Peace.
Peace, this hid riot, Change,
This revel of quick-cued mumming,
This never truly being,
This evermore becoming,
This spinner’s wheel onfleeing
Outside perception’s range.
