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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78110 ***
+
+
+
+
+VERSES
+
+
+
+
+=THE GARDEN OF KAMA=; and other Love Lyrics from India. Arranged in
+  Verse by +Laurence Hope+. Square 8vo, 5_s._ net.
+
+=STARS OF THE DESERT.= By +Laurence Hope+. Square 8vo, price 5_s._ net.
+
+
+_Uniform with the above (shortly)_
+
+=LAST POEMS.= By +Laurence Hope+.
+
+
++London+: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.
+
+
+
+
+VERSES
+
+
+BY
+
+VIOLET JACOB
+
+(MRS. ARTHUR JACOB)
+
+AUTHOR OF ‘THE SHEEP-STEALERS,’ ‘THE INTERLOPER’
+
+
+LONDON
+
+WILLIAM HEINEMANN
+
+1905
+
+
+
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+THE IDEAL CRITIC
+
+
+
+
+I have to thank the Editors of the
+_Westminster Gazette_, _The English
+Illustrated Magazine_, and _Country
+Life_ for permission to reprint some
+of the following poems.--V. J.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                          PAGE
+ To H. M. C.                                 1
+ Half-way                                    2
+ White Magic                                 4
+ Serenade                                    5
+ The Shadow                                  6
+ The Mill-house                              8
+ ‘I sleep but my Heart waketh’              13
+ An Immortelle                              14
+ The Two Queens                             15
+ The Lost Track                             16
+ At a Brookside                             18
+ Revenant                                   18
+ To Aurelia, with a Pearl Necklace          19
+ Beyond the Walls                           20
+ ‘Come on, come up, ye rovers’              22
+ An Echo                                    24
+ A Young Moon                               26
+ The Soul                                   27
+ The Ballad of Hakon                        29
+ Ignis Fatuus                               33
+ The Little Nightjar                        34
+ Possession                                 36
+ Airlie Kirk                                38
+ The Flute player                           39
+ In Lower Egypt                             42
+ Winter and Spring                          44
+ A Tryst                                    45
+ The Call                                   47
+ Time and Space                             49
+ A Translation                              50
+ Glamour                                    52
+ Lenore in the Oliveyards                   54
+ New Year’s Eve                             55
+ Three Poems for Children--
+     I. The Lilacs                          57
+    II. Dreams                              58
+   III. The Snow Witch                      61
+ The Valley of the Kings                    62
+ The Lowland Ploughman                      65
+ Late February                              67
+ From a Train-window                        68
+ Poems of India--
+        I. In a Mango-tope                  70
+       II. Night in the Plains              73
+      III. The Resting-place                75
+       IV. Evening in the Opium Fields      77
+        V. ‘God is great’                   78
+       VI. A Mahommedan Graveyard           81
+      VII. Cherry-Blossom at Dagshai        83
+     VIII. ‘With Military Honours’          85
+       IX. The Distant Temple               87
+
+
+
+
+TO H. M. C.
+
+
+    A silence falls on us to-day,
+    Our lips are closed, we do not speak,
+    But, in each other’s eyes we seek
+    And find the thing that each would say.
+
+    So deep it lies, a rock set fast,
+    Washed hard by life, by love, by tears,
+    Beneath the floods of time and years
+    Built up and rooted in the past.
+
+    And sometimes, when the tide is low,
+    A voice comes up the Northern sea;
+    Across the sands to you and me
+    It calls from lands left long ago.
+
+    By marshes lying dim and wide,
+    Through wet, grey sea-fogs, creeping on,
+    Back from that youth for ever gone
+    It comes to us across the tide.
+
+    How shall we speak? What words can say
+    The thing for which no words are known,
+    That calls to us from places lone
+    Through past, through present, through to-day?
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+HALF-WAY
+
+
+    The world is not the dream of living gold
+        We dreamed when we were young;
+    Then, all the glory that the west could hold
+        Burned, fold on fold,
+    A molten veil across its portals flung
+    Behind whose shade the years lay sleeping still,
+        Like tales untold;
+    But now, beyond the beeches bare and chill,
+    Beyond the woods set far upon the hill,
+        The clouds are cold.
+
+    And life is not the journey that we planned
+        As we set out with morn;
+    We said, ‘We will rest here and view the land,
+        Or take our stand
+    Upon these hills and see the ripening corn,
+    Or step aside along the mere to mark
+        The wild-fowl band;’
+    But now, we know we must tread swift and stark,
+    If we would cross the desert ere the dark
+        Creeps on the sand.
+
+    And death is not the dim and distant shade
+        So far against the sky;
+    The half-seen trap for others waiting laid,
+        While we, arrayed
+    In pride and plume of youth, go sweeping by.
+    We thought to meet him with a spirit braced
+        By conquests made;
+    But now, we know, when half the road is traced,
+    Our hope is but to reach him undisgraced
+        And unafraid.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+WHITE MAGIC
+
+
+    I saw the moon come out and stand last night
+      Above the plains of cloud,
+    Like a lone chief, who, at his tented door,
+    Looks down upon the forest’s silent floor
+    From a far battlement upon the height,
+      And drops his mantle proud
+    Into the swimming vapours of the light.
+
+    O watcher on the planet-woven steep
+      Whose shining feet are set
+    Above the haunted glamour of the skies!
+    Draw me, a slave, with thy compelling eyes,
+    While the slow hours in soundless circle creep,
+      Out through the world, while yet
+    The world’s heart heaves beneath the veil of sleep.
+
+    O pale-faced chief! The earth and heaven are still
+      And thou and I awake;
+    I come, with outstretched arms and spirit bound,
+    Forth through the scattered graves where, lying sound,
+    The dead are sown by field and fold and hill
+      And mist-entangled brake;
+    O pale chief! Draw me up into the height,
+      Into the swimming light.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+SERENADE
+
+
+    O roses, clustering on the sunny wall
+    In fragrant groups of white and red together,
+    Bend down, bend down your branches, one and all,
+    Beneath the fair June sky and glowing weather;
+        And say to her, I send her
+          A message tender.
+
+    And thou, convolvulus, upon the gate,
+    With pale white bells and trails of light leaves swinging,
+    Tell her my love for her is strong as fate,
+    For ever true and like thy tendrils clinging;
+        And kiss her, soft and shy,
+          As she goes by.
+
+    O jessamine, in wreaths of scented stars
+    Across the balconies and stonework meeting,
+    Climb up and enter at her window-bars
+    And bear among your buds my loving greeting;
+        Then whisper, sweet and slow,
+          ‘He waits below.’
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+    What soul has swept your branches, cypress-tree,
+      That you should point so high;
+    That you, whose root among the graves may be,
+      Look ever to the sky?
+
+    Dark warden of the long-untended tomb
+      Seen o’er some mouldering wall,
+    Or set where fountained gardens are abloom
+      And roses blush and fall.
+
+    Scarcely the wind is voiceful as it sways
+      Your column, dusk, austere;
+    Scarcely the evening breeze that round you plays
+      Brings music to the ear.
+
+    Your earth-bound foot mortality retains
+      Imprisoned in the sod,
+    Your earth-freed spirit to that ether strains
+      Which is the breath of God.
+
+    The light o’er southern vineyards dying down
+      Smiles on the landscape still,
+    And lays the lengthening shadow of your crown
+      On many a Tuscan hill.
+
+    And, nearer home, where memory’s deathless sun
+      Enwraps some tear-sown mound,
+    Your shade, at day’s decline, O silent one,
+      Slants eastward on the ground.
+
+    By tomb or pleasance, convent-girdled height,
+      In countries far or near,
+    You bear a message from eternal light
+      To us whose souls are here.
+
+    O silent witness! dark where yonder sky
+      In saffron splendour burns,
+    ’Tis but the shadow that on earth must lie,
+      The substance heavenward turns.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE MILL-HOUSE
+
+
+    Beneath the drawbridge is the moat,
+    On broadened leaves the lilies float,
+    The white bud bursts its oozy coat.
+
+    Up from the fields of ripened corn
+    There comes the sound of voices borne
+    From where the stooks stand newly shorn.
+
+    Above her head the banner flies,
+    A dragon blue with banded eyes,
+    Grey in the sun the towers rise.
+
+    Within, the knights sit in a row,
+    And ladies, with their hands of snow;
+    The golden cup goes to and fro.
+
+    She heeds nor feast, nor song, nor wine,
+    She only sees the weapons shine
+    Upon the plains of Palestine.
+
+    She only hears the trumpets bray
+    Their summons through the Eastern day,
+    The tramp of horses far away.
+
+    Her heart sees all the far-off scene,
+    And, with her heart, she hears the green
+    Wild roll of waters in between.
+
+    The light from the horizon’s rim
+    Strikes, like the wings of seraphim,
+    Upon the fountain’s circled brim.
+
+    A shadow lies before her face,
+    Sir Hugh has risen and left his place:
+    “Elayne, the seasons march apace;
+
+    Lo, patience is a good knight’s stay,
+    Yet comes the time when men may say
+    ‘Who waits too long will lose the day.’
+
+    The dial by the swinging vane
+    Marks how the long hours wax and wane--
+    ’Tis time the priest were brought, Elayne.
+
+    Yon knight who fights in Palestine,
+    What is his love compared with mine?
+    I will load your hair with jewels fine,
+
+    You shall lie on silk, you shall sit, a queen,
+    In costly raiment blue and green
+    With golden roses wrought in between.”
+
+    To where the crazy mill-house stands
+    He has borne her with his iron hands,
+    Her hair hangs down in russet bands;
+
+    He has shorn a long tress of her hair
+    And bound her feet so slim and fair,
+    He has borne her out on the mill-house stair.
+
+    “Elayne, Elayne, you are young to die,
+    There is none to hear should you call or cry,
+    Shall the water have you or shall I?”
+
+    She makes no sound; beneath the ledge
+    An eddy swirls among the sedge,
+    He takes a step to the stairs’ edge.
+
+    The mill-race, roaring far beneath,
+    Seems like the sound of gloating death,
+    She looks down and she holds her breath.
+
+    “Elayne, what think you? Which is best?”
+    Against the black heart in his breast
+    She keeps her pale face closely prest.
+
+    The mill-race, winding mile on mile,
+    Sounds like an angry voice the while;
+    He cannot see her drawn lips smile.
+
+    Like some slim beast, some snake or stoat,
+    She meets her teeth upon his throat,
+    Her fingers grasp his leathern coat.
+
+    On the top step they swing and sway,
+    His breath comes short, his face is grey,
+    The waters close with a splash of spray.
+
+    The mill-race runs till it nears the moat,
+    What thing does the water raise and float?
+    --A drowned dead man with a mark on his throat.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+‘I SLEEP BUT MY HEART WAKETH’
+
+
+    Here in the winding coil of waterways,
+    Apart among the trees, where no feet pass,
+    And little woodland rabbits on the grass
+    Sit lightly cropping through the Autumn days,
+    The troubling world, with all its weary moods,
+    Is far away outside the circling woods.
+
+    A golden rain of leaf is on the beech
+    And red and gold the maze of branches glow
+    To drop their wealth upon the grass below,
+    As golden silence falls on golden speech;
+    In long, wet flats, wherein the heron feeds,
+    A golden sky is mirrored through the reeds.
+
+    No voices come to still that other voice
+    Which breathes along the labyrinth of trees
+    To tell the tired soul to dwell at ease
+    Among the best-loved visions of its choice:
+    ‘Sleep in these groves,’ it says, ‘by spirits trod,
+    While thine heart waketh to the sound of God.’
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+AN IMMORTELLE
+
+
+    There is a secret garden where I dwell
+    Hedged round about with thorn and Judas-tree,
+      Barred in with iron like a prison cell
+        And known to none but me.
+
+    Black rocks encircle it; the nightshade wreath
+    Twines in the bush its leaden-purple spray
+      And the rank hellebore, with poisoned breath,
+        Sighs on the air all day.
+
+    I loved it not, yet I was wont to go
+    To gaze my fill and all my plants compare,
+      To taste the bitter herbs that thrive and grow,
+        Spreading a carpet there.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    But now, ’tis years, since, in that sorry place,
+    I swung the wicket; for, all gloriously,
+      A wingèd figure came with radiant face
+        And bore away the key.
+
+    And still--I have a little poison-flower
+    I gathered there; and, though I would forget,
+      I take it out in some friend-haunted hour
+        To find it living yet.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO QUEENS
+
+
+    A man went down the path of life,
+    And, where the vines were thick and green
+    And grapes hung waiting for the knife,
+    There smiled to him a queen.
+    Love lit the eyes beneath her brow,
+    His lips met hers a moment’s span;
+    He said, ‘My heart is glad, for now
+          I know I am a man.’
+
+    And, further on, among the corn,
+    Another queen whose eyes made dim
+    The very glory of the morn,
+    Held out her hand to him.
+    There was no time for speech or vow,
+    He kissed it, kneeling on the sod,
+    He said, ‘My soul is high, for now
+          I feel I am a god.’
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST TRACK
+
+
+    When you have passed, and earth, grown dim behind you,
+      Lies far upon the outworn verge of time,
+    When my hand, searching, shall no longer find you
+              In any clime;
+
+    If I but dream your step, by hill or hollow,
+       Has left some echo falling on the wind,
+    I will arise and gird myself and follow
+              Though I be blind.
+
+    Or if, clear-sighted, I may but discover
+      That, in the dew at dawn, your footsteps lie,
+    Where, through long fields, the whistling of the plover
+              Comes like a sigh;
+
+    And, if they lead me down to Death’s black river,
+      And, by the rocks, I hear the whirlpools spin,
+    Though heart and soul may faint and body quiver
+              I will wade in.
+
+    O heart! beyond the tumult of the crossing,
+      If there should be no sign, nor any trace,
+    Only strange winds upon the grasses tossing
+              And the wide space,
+
+    Only eternity, with worlds to wander,
+      A soul among the unknown souls of men,
+    And, O my heart, no voice, no footstep yonder,
+              What then? What then?
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+AT A BROOKSIDE
+
+
+    A running melody is in the noon
+    Of grass-bound rivulet and tangled showers,
+    Of sunlight, glancing through the cuckoo-flowers
+    To mingle golden ripples with the tune;
+    In the wide light my senses seem to swoon,
+    Drugged by the monotone of rhythmic hours
+    And voice of spring-fed watercourse that dowers
+    This winding meadow-land with music’s boon.
+
+    Caught in a shimmering net of sight and sound,
+    And drawn, I know not whither, yet aware
+    Am I of some soft touch, and, blown around
+    My face, the plenitude of waving hair--
+    Nay, let me lie and dream this wondrous thing;
+    My hand, one moment, held the hand of Spring!
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+REVENANT
+
+
+    In the dark hours I woke and heard the trees
+    That tossed and buffeted before the blast,
+    Straining and sighing while the gale went past;
+    And, as a scourge whose wrath might none appease,
+    The raindrops smote the pane and ran in seas,
+    Gurgling against the frame; now thick and fast,
+    And now like pebbles at the window cast
+    By some lost spirit that could find no ease.
+
+    And from the blackness of the dripping night
+    I turned me, weary of its sodden gloom,
+    Smiling to see the glow within the room
+    And the red embers on the hearth alight;
+    Then sudden ceased, and bowed my head again,
+    Thinking of that one gravestone in the rain.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+TO AURELIA, WITH A PEARL NECKLACE
+
+
+    Aurelia, think not to refuse
+    Or scorn my gift, although
+    These jewels must their lustre lose
+    Upon thy neck of snow.
+
+    But, if thine eyes should glance aside
+    And deign to mark their shine,
+    Deem them as emblems of the pride
+    That fills this heart of mine.
+
+    And if, for mine unworthy sake,
+    The pearls neglected be,
+    Still keep them; and the bauble make
+    Into a rosary.
+
+    And when, perchance, desiring grace,
+    In prayer thy spirit pleads,
+    String thou thy kisses in their place
+    And I will tell the beads.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+BEYOND THE WALLS
+
+
+    The firelight plays since dusk began
+        To gather in the room,
+    Beyond the pane the daylight’s span
+        Grows to the evening gloom;
+    But my heart is out with the gipsy man
+        In his lair among the broom.
+
+    Beside the farm both barn and stack
+        Dark in the steading rise,
+    Up in the loaning green, the track
+        Along the firwood lies,
+    Where the gipsy sits with his brows of black,
+        And the black light in his eyes.
+
+    He marks the swift owl skim the trees
+        When twilight turns to grey,
+    He hears the whisper up the leas
+        Before the coming day,
+    And the secret hours of the world he sees
+        And the soul of night at play.
+
+    His ceiling is the drooping bough,
+        The fir-trees’ ragged limb,
+    When from the hills the western sough
+        Sings o’er the lowlands dim;
+    And the polestar, hanging above the Plough,
+        Is the lantern-flame for him.
+
+    O weary roof and crowding wall
+        That bar the scented air!
+    O chain and key whose ceaseless thrall
+        Lies on a world of care,
+    There are no bolts shot in the firwood tall
+        But the joy of life is there!
+
+    O to be out when spring has drest
+        The green moss for a bed,
+    To roam by plain and wooded crest
+        Till the rose-hips turn to red;
+    And to lay me down for the last long rest,
+        With the great sky overhead!
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+‘COME ON, COME UP, YE ROVERS’
+
+
+    Come on, come up, ye rovers
+      Whose ships at anchor ride,
+    The west wind stirs the clovers,
+      And O! the world is wide:
+    So, up with your chains as the sun goes down
+      And out upon the tide!
+
+    There drives on the Atlantic
+      The torn scud of the rain,
+    And lines of foam leap frantic
+      Against the coast of Spain,
+    Where the air is full of the souls of men
+      Who sailed the Spanish Main.
+
+    Where Rocca’s light is burning
+      On plunging miles of sea,
+    Eastward and eastward turning,
+      By Crete and Tripoli,
+    There is a spirit abroad in the wind
+      That cries aloud to me.
+
+    The coast drops low behind you,
+      The gull swoops round the spars;
+    Shall small men’s limits bind you
+      Whose milestones are the stars?
+    Whose signposts stand where Orion swings
+      Above earth’s locks and bars?
+
+    Come up, ye sons of morning,
+      This world was built for you!
+    Far off, Heaven’s light’s adorning
+      The lands where dreams come true;
+    And the Angel that sits at the Gates of the East
+      Shall open and let you through.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+AN ECHO
+
+
+    When all the world is young and apple-bloom
+    Is rose and white upon the orchard tree,
+    When all the threads of Spring’s ethereal loom
+    Weave a green garment for her phantasy;
+    That voice of youth and growth and vanished years
+    Comes through all time, in floating cadence, still,
+    Through mists of life and long-forgotten tears,
+    The cuckoo calling faintly from the hill.
+
+    The hidden streams in many a marshy place
+    Their chains of little standing pools unfold,
+    Like silver mirrors for Spring’s wanton face
+    Tossed at her feet and framed in marigold.
+    Hark to her footsteps down the sloping fields
+    Dancing in measure to the music shrill,
+    That, from its budding depth, the coppice yields,
+    The cuckoo calling faintly from the hill.
+
+    O Youth, O Time, O Change--O haunting note!
+    When from our life we shed mortality,
+    When all our joys and passions are remote,
+    All that the ear could hear or eye could see;
+    Haply, across the gulf where Time lies bound,
+    Some shadow of a voice may reach us still,
+    Like that long echo from enchanted ground,
+    The cuckoo calling faintly from the hill.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+A YOUNG MOON
+
+
+    A crescent hung above the trees,
+    A sweep of fading sky;
+    A parting shiver in the breeze,
+    And day lies down to die.
+
+    A silver curve above the murk
+    Where weary cities slave
+    And heart and hand are seamed with work
+    Whose goal is but the grave.
+
+    Within the young moon’s slender arm
+    The old moon’s shadow lies,
+    That wraith whose evanescent charm
+    Melts back to Paradise.
+
+    O’er one, o’er all, the wonder swings;
+    A gleam sad eyes may see;
+    A lamp that flies on hidden wings
+    To light my love and me;
+
+    A vigil-taper, lone, apart,
+    High above field and town
+    O’er many a spot where some poor heart
+    Has laid its burden down.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUL
+
+
+    I laid a rose upon my loved one’s bier
+        Beside her quiet face;
+    A red rose, scented with the fadeless year
+    When Love’s eyes met us in the noonday clear
+        In a fair place.
+
+    I set it very softly down to lie
+        Amid her heavy hair;
+    And then, methought, the Soul that hovered by
+    Looked towards me through the dimness with a sigh
+        As I stood there.
+
+    I laid my empty world upon the pyre,
+        Beside her open hand;
+    A world that life had stocked with youth and fire,
+    Fortune and fame and wealth and world’s desire,
+        And strength to stand.
+
+    She knew each aim, fulfilled or unfulfilled,
+        That ever had been mine;
+    And then, methought, the Soul above her willed
+    Towards me through the dusk, a whisper stilled,
+        Whisper or sign?
+
+    I laid my heart upon my loved one’s breast,
+        Beside her silent heart;
+    Sorrow and vigil shared, the worst, the best,
+    All, all it held she knew who lay at rest,
+        Till we did part.
+
+    Ah me! it seemed as if her pale lips shook
+        With pity as she lay,
+    As though she wore that unforgotten look;
+    And then, methought, the Soul came down and took
+        My heart away.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF HAKON
+
+
+    Across the stretching reed-beds
+    The dusk and twilight flee,
+    And thick the sea-fog covers
+    The roaring Northern Sea.
+
+    O Hakon, grey-eyed Hakon
+    With tawny yellow hair,
+    Why are you standing all alone?
+    Why are you waiting there?
+
+    Across the stretching reed-beds,
+    Amid the falling light,
+    Comes tripping fair maid Mettelil
+    Among the bents to-night.
+
+    ‘O Mettelil, you have tarried,
+    The dark is drawing on,
+    Were you with young Herr Axel
+    This long long hour that’s gone?
+
+    I watched him by the reed-beds,
+    I saw him pause and wait,
+    Till twilight came I looked for you--
+    O Mettelil, it is late!
+
+    Goodbye, goodbye, Maid Mettelil,
+    The raven cries o’erhead,
+    A stormy wind rolls in from sea,
+    Mettelil, my heart is dead!’
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Across the roaring ocean
+    The plunging war-ships go,
+    And Hakon, armed to battle,
+    Sails out to meet the foe.
+
+    Where’er the press is thickest,
+    Upon the prow he stands;
+    Around him fly the arrows
+    Shot by the foeman’s hands.
+
+    The air is wild with shrieking
+    Of those that fight and drown.
+    The blows fall thick round Hakon
+    But none can strike him down.
+
+    ‘O Death that I am seeking,
+    Why com’st thou not to me?
+    I would my heart lay cold and still
+    Beneath the rolling sea!’
+
+    At home sits fair Maid Mettelil,
+    The tears are in her eyes,
+    And, ere a month is come and gone,
+    In kirkyard ground she lies.
+
+    And sadly home comes Hakon,
+    Weary his face has grown,
+    All through the night he wanders
+    Beside the kirkyard lone.
+
+    ‘Mettelil, the leaves are falling,
+    The north wind whistles free,
+    The chill mist wraps me in its shroud,
+    Come back, come back to me!’
+
+    Between the glimmering headstones,
+    Beneath the branches black,
+    A form comes quickly gliding
+    And stands at Hakon’s back.
+
+    ‘Turn round, turn round now, Hakon,
+    And hold me to your breast
+    And touch my cold lips once with yours,
+    For then my soul can rest.’
+
+    She wound her white arms round him,
+    She touched his tawny hair,
+    ‘O Hakon, hold me faster,
+    My grave is opening there!’
+
+    He held her close and closer,
+    Lower he bent his head--
+    An icy wind swept o’er his heart,
+    One kiss, and he was dead.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+IGNIS FATUUS
+
+
+        ‘Little Goblin at the fire,
+        Have you found the Heart’s Desire?
+    Have you seen it in your flitting by night or by noon?’
+        ‘O it may be in the swell
+        Of the mist-wreath up the fell,
+    Or the long clouds trailing at the tail o’ the moon.’
+
+        ‘Little Goblin in the cold,
+        Have you seen it on the wold,
+    Where the winds with flying voices run free as they rave?’
+        ‘O it may be in the sigh
+        Of a time that is gone by
+    Or the long grass growing by the brink o’ the grave.’
+
+        ‘Little Goblin in the trees,
+        Looking down the darkening leas,
+    Have you seen no golden country where the heart finds rest?’
+        ‘O, it may be where the night
+        Comes to quench the flaming light,
+    In the far lands lying through the fire o’ the west.’
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE NIGHTJAR
+
+
+        When the moon is on the wall
+        And her shadow on the door,
+    When darkness on the orchard lies like sea upon the shore,
+    The apple-boughs are silver with the silence swimming through,
+        With the halo of the dew;
+    Hark! what little shrieking nightjar ever gave so soft a call
+        When the moon is on the wall?
+
+        When the moon is on the wall
+        There’s a sound among the trees;
+    O master on the settle, with the sheep dog at your knees,
+    At the little nightjar’s voice does he stir to wake and growl?
+        Does the hooting of the owl
+    Make him prick his ears and quiver, make his hackles rise and fall
+        When the moon is on the wall?
+
+        When the moon is on the wall
+        And the fire has sunk and died,
+    The maid sits still to listen for the lad that lurks outside--
+    Good master, dozing o’er your pipe, how fast is slumber’s thrall
+        When the moon is on the wall!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+      O! but ’tis strange how shadows move that lay so still, so still,
+      And stranger yet how close they draw before the night grows chill,
+    And the little nightjar shrieks no more from out the elm-tree tall,
+        And the moon has left the wall.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+POSSESSION
+
+
+      She has laid her snare
+    And her eyes hold midnight’s sign,
+    Like pools in a moonless land
+    Lit up by the stars that shine;
+      With her burning hair
+    She has bound you, strand by strand,
+    She holds your heart in her hand,
+    But your soul is mine.
+
+      She has set her feet
+    In a path where roses blow,
+    She plays with your heart, the sea
+    Plays thus with its dead below,
+      And the game is sweet;
+    But your soul is here with me,
+    O Man; it is yours and free--
+    But it cannot go.
+
+      We shall stand, we two,
+    And her lips shall hold the sum
+    Of notes in a syren’s tone,
+    But mine shall be closed and dumb;
+      And, the whole day through,
+    Shall her eyes allure your own,
+    But I will stand like a stone
+    And your soul shall come.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+AIRLIE KIRK
+
+
+      A little spot of tangled ground
+      Set in the folding hill,
+      From curlew-haunted braes the sound
+      Of flitting voices shrill;
+      The high October sky unrolled
+      Above the plough-land’s crest,
+      Rank mallows by the hearthstone cold
+      With the field-mouse for guest;
+    Gudeman, it is long since the fire went out
+      And time that we went to rest.
+
+      The naked rafters overhead
+      Stand up like withered hands;
+      I mind me when the roof-tree spread
+      Where now the burdock stands.
+      The threshold’s deep between the whin
+      And fast in briers twined;
+      Where little feet ran out and in
+      The track is hard to find;
+    Gudeman, it is long since we closed the door
+      And left what it held behind.
+
+      Down in the strath the kirk is set
+      Upon the running burn;
+      It’s many roads we’ve trod, and yet
+      It’s here we must return.
+      Old lights along the fields are laid,
+      Old shadows lie as deep,
+      But new eyes watch them as they fade
+      Among the grazing sheep,
+    And it’s time we went down to Airlie kirk
+      And laid ourselves down to sleep.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE FLUTE PLAYER
+
+
+    In the window’s shade ere the dusk has spread
+        Over plain and hill,
+    And the tulip-flowers in the garden-bed
+        Have a glory still;
+
+    When the world of toil and the world of ease
+        Are alike at rest;
+    I can hear him play in the belt of trees
+        Where the fields slope west.
+
+    And the notes run high and the notes run low
+        In a rambling stream;
+    Like an old voice calling from long ago,
+        A dream of a dream.
+
+    His eyes are afire with the secret light
+        Of a land unknown,
+    And the tree-stems echo his footsteps’ flight
+        Upon moss and stone.
+
+    There is no more staying nor rest for me
+        When his flute is heard,
+    It is out, out, out to the melody
+        Without sign or word.
+
+    The lamps may be lit in the shuttered room
+        And the door be fast,
+    Or a long day faint with a summer’s bloom
+        On the hedges cast;
+
+    Let the path be winding in crowded ways
+        Or in woods profound,
+    It is all forgotten when once he plays
+        And I hear the sound.
+
+    Though foot may ache and though heart may fail
+        And the brain grow numb,
+    It is follow, follow the flying trail
+        Till the flute is dumb.
+
+    For life was a breath of the early spring,
+        When at first he came,
+    And, now that the harvest is ripening,
+        It is still the same;
+
+    And it well may be when the last dusk falls
+        On my little day,
+    When the last sun colours the crumbling walls
+        Of the house of clay;
+
+    I shall hear him playing beyond the hill
+        Where the fields slope west,
+    And follow him on till his steps are still
+        And the flute at rest.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+IN LOWER EGYPT
+
+
+    Above the ancient waters of the Nile
+    The mists of earth and dusk of heaven meet,
+    Where, slow along the bank, the camel-file
+    Moves, like a passing dream, on velvet feet;
+    And, as the choral voices of a dream,
+    The night sounds play their chant upon the stream.
+
+    The crane stands silent; all the fields exhale
+    A band of fertile damp along the shore;
+    The same moon, red and low behind the veil,
+    That lit Old Egypt, lights for me once more
+    The mirage of a kingdom that has been,
+    And, through the mist, the shadow of a queen.
+
+    Rise up, O Royal Egypt, from the dusk
+    With all the weight of tresses on thine head
+    Heavy with golden nets and faint with musk,
+    Girt with the lotus from the river-bed,
+    And eyes that once, with their devouring fire,
+    Lit for men’s hearts a sacrificial pyre.
+
+    O Serpent, by a serpent slain at last!
+    Come through the vapourous fields with garments trailed,
+    Embroidered with the lotus-leaf, made fast
+    With gems; with green and Tyrian purple veiled;
+    Turn but thy face, that I may see and know
+    The witchcraft throned in Egypt long ago.
+
+    There is a sound of flute and wavering reed,
+    The measured throb of falling oars that beat,
+    A tall prow swimming noiseless through the weed,
+    The shifting glimmer of a silken sheet;
+    And, from the dim luxuriance drawn nigh,
+    The feet of Royal Egypt passing by.
+
+    And now, her foot is set upon the barge,
+    The flutes play up, the fans ply to and fro,
+    The ripples, dying at the river-marge,
+    Curl, as the prow swings out upon the flow,
+    And its retreating music and its state
+    Leave, once again, the dusk inviolate:
+
+    Only, across the tillage lying low,
+    There comes the creak of well-wheels working late.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+WINTER AND SPRING
+
+
+        O wet green winter grass,
+      Sodden and chill with rain,
+    There are some footsteps that will never pass
+        Along the fields again.
+
+        O fresh blue air of Spring,
+      When lights lie long upon the slope,
+    There are two eyes to which you cannot bring
+        Your lights of youth and hope.
+
+        O white syringa-tree,
+      Year in, year out, below your feet
+    There is one heart to all eternity
+        That will not stir nor beat.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+A TRYST
+
+
+      Here, where our two ways part,
+    That, for a little time, ran side by side,
+    That now must turn and turning must divide,
+    Look, look and see how straight through Eden’s heart,
+    Unbarred, unbroken, lay the double track;
+    The dark has fallen and the sun has set,
+    The world lies round us, limitless, and yet
+        I will come back.
+
+      Across the plain of life
+    There stretches this enchanted forest’s band,
+    Haunted of crying voices, stirred and fanned,
+    Swept through by airs whose breath, I know, is rife
+    In that far bourn wherein no man may lack
+    His sure fulfilment; look on leaf and flower--
+    In the dim dawn of some unnumbered hour
+        I will come back.
+
+      So meet me here: good-bye;
+    The light that lies on all this golden time
+    Shall burn on the horizon and shall climb
+    Like some vast city’s glow into the sky,
+    Unquenched by darkness or the cloudy wrack;
+    In flesh or spirit--which, it matters not,
+    --Remembered or unlooked for or forgot--
+        I will come back.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE CALL
+
+
+    The stars above the apple boughs,
+    Like distant gazers, stand aloof,
+    Watching the white walls of the house,
+    Watching the room below the roof.
+
+    There is the night-hush over all
+    Beneath the crescent hanging low,
+    And, through the dark, there comes a call
+    From hidden lips whose voice I know.
+
+    And every root and stem and leaf,
+    Sends out its scented breath to me;
+    The fox is waiting like a thief,
+    The bird is watching from the tree.
+
+    And, in the room below the thatch,
+    While the white house in sleep is drowned,
+    Up to the open window-latch
+    There come strange whispers from the ground.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+      I will arise and steal upon the stair,
+    Where the tall clock counts up Time’s gathered hoard
+      Telling its numbers to the empty air,
+      My naked feet upon the creaking board.
+    Out, out across the threshold I will go
+      Into the night, the sighing, luring night,
+      And all the eyes above, around, below,
+    Like lamps upon my path shall peer and glow
+      Till thorn and thicket are alive with light.
+
+      I will lie down upon my mother Earth,
+    Heart to her heart and soul upon her soul,
+    Until the sounds that in the night have birth
+      Above my head their harmonies unroll;
+      And over me the little pattering feet
+    Shall come and go; and every bush and tree
+    Shall send from out its shades a cloudy fleet
+    Of flitting wings whose softly-thronging beat
+      Shall neither stay nor turn because of me.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+TIME AND SPACE
+
+
+    ‘How far, O friend, are you and I apart
+    While all these wastes of sea between us roll?’
+    ‘So far, that now, the beating of your heart
+    Has merged into the flutter of your soul.’
+
+    ‘How far, my dear, has your hand gone from mine
+    In these long days and months since they have met?’
+    ‘So far that memory has forgot to pine,
+    Believing that its touch is present yet.’
+
+    ‘And O! how far, when night has fallen between,
+    Shall we be set in all the years untold?’
+    ‘So near that you, when trouble’s blast is keen,
+    Shall feel my shade between you and the cold.’
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+A TRANSLATION
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN)
+
+
+1
+
+    In the valley with moonlight streaming,
+      In depths of the forest free,
+    An old and forgotten dreaming
+    Is weaving its spell round me.
+
+
+2
+
+    Dim columns, ghostlike and lonely,
+      Range darkly on yonder mound,
+    To the bat and the owlet only
+    Familiar trysting ground.
+
+
+3
+
+    From the rocks come memories ringing,
+      The west wind whispers and calls,
+    And towers of gold are springing
+    From ruin and crumbling walls.
+
+
+4
+
+    In a haze, through cloudland blowing,
+      Is wafted the old love--dead;
+    She draws me towards her, glowing
+    With radiance of youth that’s fled.
+
+
+5
+
+    Like bliss from a far past carried
+      Comes softly her whispered vow;
+    And what in the years lay buried
+    Stands living before me now.
+
+
+6
+
+    Then, soft as it came, the vision
+      Is gone; from the forest space,
+    Where we kissed in the woods Elysian
+    Has faded her vanished face.
+
+
+7
+
+    The golden dreamland of wonder
+      Has fled on the passing wind,
+    The desolate walls up yonder
+    Are all that remain behind.
+
+
+8
+
+    And, under the branches sweeping,
+      I walk in the dawn alone,
+    For day on the hills is creeping
+    And the glory of dreams has flown.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+GLAMOUR
+
+
+    It seems as though Spring’s light and waving leaves
+        Were part of youth alone;
+    As though the shadows, dancing by the eaves
+    In shifting web on wall and window thrown,
+        Forgot how nature weaves.
+
+    Still throbs the chorus of the birds content,
+        Still, clouded with the may,
+    Cream-white, the hedges trail their load of scent,
+    Winding along the border of the way,
+        The same, yet different.
+
+    It seems as though the pear-tree’s bridal veil
+        Had lost its fluttered lace;
+    The butterflies that dart their splendour frail
+    Through sun and blossom in their endless chase
+        On duller pinions sail.
+
+    What joy has faded out from field and tree?
+        What glamour from the air?
+    Are not the cowslips grouped as cunningly,
+    Whispering together like young maidens fair
+        To wait the errant bee?
+
+    All, all the hues that Springtime ever wore
+        Return as fair again;
+    The ribes hangs its tassels as of yore,
+    Pungent and sweet beneath the dropping rain
+        At every cottage door.
+
+    But what is lost? Nay, naught from nature’s flow
+        Of magic infinite;
+    Unchanged the earth, the skies of long ago--
+    Yet, once we saw them through the morning light
+        And now the sun is low.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+LENORE IN THE OLIVEYARDS
+
+(FOR MUSIC)
+
+
+    When, stooping from the walls of Heaven, the night
+    Lets down on earth her star-bespangled hair,
+    And all the pavement of the winding stair
+    Is grey beneath a waning crescent’s light,
+    Look down upon the planted olive-trees,
+    A maze of twisted stem and silver leaf;
+    This is the message sighing on the breeze
+    ‘Joy sails on flying wings and youth is brief.’
+
+
+(HE SINGS)
+
+    ‘Come down, come down, the little Loves are peeping
+    Between the stems and shadows on the grass
+    And all the prying eyes of earth are sleeping,
+    The sands are running in the hour-glass;
+
+    The red anemone a crown shall weave you,
+    Be-jewelled with the dew and spiked with flame,
+    And all the little waiting Loves receive you
+    Beneath the branches whispering your name.
+
+    Come down, Lenore; the cock will soon be crowing,
+    The noisy birds awake that now are dumb;
+    Can new hours match the moments that are going?
+    Who knows? Not you nor I, Lenore. Come.’
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+NEW YEAR’S EVE
+
+
+      Go far from me, ye brood
+    Of little Hates and Sins who thus intrude,
+    Hide with the perished leaf below the mould;
+      The Old Year’s shade is dim--
+    A touch, no more, upon the round world’s rim--
+    And all the sky a-glitter in the cold.
+
+      Stand closer, Faith and Truth
+    And the long Patience that outlasts its youth,
+    The hour is at the change; and, drawing near,
+      There is a footstep’s sound,
+    A measured fall upon the iron ground,
+    And the earth, spell-bound, waits the coming year.
+
+      Come from your graves, O Lost!
+    And stand, this once, beside me in the frost
+    And turn, once more, your eyes upon my own;
+      Leave, for the past’s old sake,
+    Some look, some comrade’s sign for me to take,
+    That, in the tossings of the time unknown,
+      I may not be alone.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THREE POEMS FOR CHILDREN
+
+
+
+
+I. THE LILACS
+
+
+    The fields and garden-borders
+    Are bright because of spring,
+    The clouds of guelder roses
+    Are out and blossoming;
+    And close beside the gateway,
+    Tall, upon either hand,
+    Their green robes shot with sunlight,
+    Like queens, the Lilacs stand.
+
+    And one is crowned with purple,
+    And one is crowned with white;
+    Look! where the wind is passing
+    They bow to left and right,
+    And trails of scent they scatter
+    As royal gifts to all,
+    To every creature dwelling
+    Within the garden-wall.
+
+    O queen in plumes of purple!
+    Throw me a breath of joy,
+    You are all grand and glorious
+    And I a little boy;
+    But ask the lovely lady
+    With white plumes in her hair
+    To scent my heart with sweetness,
+    To make it pure and fair.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+II. DREAMS
+
+
+    This is a thing that no one knows;
+    When every hedge in summer blows
+    With twining vetch and brier-rose,
+
+    When every bud has burst its sheath,
+    The white convolvulus’ wreath
+    Is hung with blossoms underneath.
+
+    They are so faint and pale and shy
+    They almost look as if they’d die
+    Before the sun has left the sky.
+
+    What children, even if they tried,
+    Could ever guess that, far inside
+    Each bell, a little sprite may hide?
+
+    And who’d suppose that, in the night,
+    When no one’s there to see the sight,
+    They all unclose their trumpets white?
+
+    And, when the world is fast asleep,
+    Out of the flowers these fairies creep
+    And down into the lanes they peep.
+
+    They see the little tinker-boys
+    Who have no home, no nurse, no toys,
+    And O! so few of children’s joys.
+
+    And, as they watch them lying there
+    With weary heads and feet all bare,
+    They hover round them in the air;
+
+    Such lovely dreams for them they make
+    That their tired feet no longer ache,
+    And they are happy when they wake.
+
+    What do they show them? Glorious things;
+    Whole palaces of queens and kings
+    And birds that fly on golden wings.
+
+    And silent waters, winding far
+    Through groves of trees where angels are,
+    Lit by the trail of one blue star.
+
+    And, when they wake, these visions stay
+    To help them on along their way
+    And keep them cheerful all the day.
+
+    _You_ want such dreams, you say to me?
+    --Ah, if these wonders you would see
+    A tinker’s child you’d have to be,
+
+    To wander far and wander wide
+    From New Year’s Day to Christmastide,
+    And then--you’d have to sleep outside.
+
+    But now the white moon walks the sky,
+    So, from your beds, thank God on high,
+    Because so soft and safe you lie.
+
+    --And yet, some day, however blest,
+    You too may weary of your rest
+    And think, perhaps, that dreams are best.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+III. THE SNOW WITCH
+
+
+    When all the world is under snow,
+    And the wind, crying in the north,
+    Sends its wild choir of voices forth,
+    Now shrieking loud, now falling low,
+    The Snow Witch with her ice-crowned hair
+    Is hurling snowflakes everywhere.
+
+    Her garments are the Northern Lights
+    Beyond the bare arms of the trees;
+    And, from her height, she looks and sees
+    Earth’s towns and hamlets lit o’ nights;
+    And sighs, mayhap, far up above,
+    For one poor hearth alight with love.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS
+
+
+    Northward upon the stream our boat is creeping,
+    The sky above is pearl, the river pearl,
+    And soon will coming night her shades unfurl
+    Like some great bird on stealthy pinions sweeping,
+    As the effulgence chills
+    And young stars stand above the Theban hills
+    Within whose fastnesses the kings are sleeping.
+
+    To them the roll of time is but a dreaming,
+    To them the lotus, mouldered on their breasts,
+    Still dripping from the Nile, in beauty rests,
+    As when the mourners broke those blossoms streaming
+    And shook the silver shower,
+    The pallid glory of the royal flower
+    Fit guerdon for a royal spirit deeming.
+
+    To-night it seems that peak and rugged boulder
+    Stand o’er their soundless dwellings for a sign;
+    Surely some cipher of a hand divine
+    Is graven yonder on the mountain’s shoulder,
+    Hidden in shadows vast
+    That melt to greyness as the boat slips past
+    With the slow current, and the sky grows colder.
+
+    Mayhap, the phantom of a past endeavour,
+    Born of that ancient striving to the light,
+    Has wrapt the secret sepulchres with might
+    And haunts the valley of the Nile for ever;
+    Breathing eternally
+    A note of immortality to be,
+    Resounding ceaselessly and dying never.
+
+    While, round the sleepers, sounds of feet have broken
+    The stillness that encompassed them so long,
+    And the loud voices of an idle throng
+    Within those halls of death have idly spoken;
+    While sacrilegious hands
+    Have loosed about them the funereal bands
+    To rob their bosoms of life’s symbolled token,
+
+    From one unchanging hope can none divide them,
+    Although its outward emblem be despoiled;
+    Though silence and the peace for which they toiled
+    A world whose ways they knew not has denied them,
+    That hope its wings has spread
+    Within the rifled strongholds of the dead
+    As the wings shadowed on the wall beside them.
+
+    Changeless, unaltered still the soul’s desire is,
+    Fixed as the hills whose heights we leave behind
+    To merge in fading colours undefined,
+    Purple and amethyst and rose and iris,
+    And, to the dripping oar,
+    The dusk is closing down along the shore,
+    The brooding dusk of Isis and Osiris.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+THE LOWLAND PLOUGHMAN
+
+
+    The team is stabled up, my lass,
+      The dew lies thick and grey;
+    Beyond the world, the long green light
+      Clings to the edge of day.
+
+    By farm and fold the work is still,
+      Their breath the beanflowers yield,
+    And, in the dusk, the gowans stand
+      Like moons along the field.
+
+    A little ghost alone, my dear,
+      The night moth flitters by;
+    Beside the hedge I’m lonely too,
+      Although no ghost am I.
+
+    Leave the gudeman to mind the hearth,
+      The wife to mend the fire,
+    Nor heed the lads whose voices come
+      In mirth from yard and byre.
+
+    The evening star is up, my dear,
+      And oh! the night is sweet,
+    Come through the heavy drops that bend
+      The grasses at your feet.
+
+    For I am young and I am strong
+      And well can work for two,
+    And ’tis a year, come Martinmas,
+      I’ve loved no lass but you.
+
+    And, in a year, come Martinmas,
+      Before the fields are sown,
+    I will not need to walk nor stray
+      Between the lights alone.
+
+    For then the cot beyond the farm
+      A happy man will hold,
+    A wife who wears a golden ring
+      To match her hair of gold.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+LATE FEBRUARY
+
+
+    Blue vistas of an avenue
+      Range, line on line, against the sky;
+      Away, beyond, the low hills lie
+    To frame this landscape in with blue.
+
+    And clear and far the light is spread
+      As though earth smiled to feel the stir,
+      The first faint thrill that moves in her
+    Who, all these months, has lain as dead.
+
+    Fresh year, fresh sky, fresh hope--and yet
+      A sigh is in the lengthening days;
+      Between the trunks the blackbird strays
+    Whose long-drawn note is called regret.
+
+    White snowdrops, close among the roots,
+      Scored at your drooping hearts with green,
+      What scents from springs that once have been
+    Cling, like old griefs, among your shoots?
+
+    Yes, like old griefs; and we, who view,
+      Year after year, life’s deathless round,
+      Feel their spent throb in every wound
+    And know that they are deathless too.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+FROM A TRAIN-WINDOW
+
+
+    Where, struck with sunset light, the shining rails
+      Converge upon our track,
+    The smoky canopy of London veils
+      The distant heaven with black.
+
+    Behind us, dropping further in our wake,
+      The lessening city lies,
+    And all the landscape has begun to take
+      A glamour from the skies.
+
+    Scarcely a cloud the sun’s effulgence shields
+      From evening’s stealthy hand;
+    But half the crimson disc beyond the fields
+      Stares on the level land.
+
+    Through the moist meadows, broad on either side,
+      Merged to one dusky plain,
+    There sounds, the breathing stillness to divide,
+      The clanking of the train.
+
+    And cooling silence, like a wave of balm,
+      After the city’s heat,
+    Is spread around us, odourous and calm,
+      With foam of meadowsweet.
+
+    In the damp ditches ranging from the line
+      Towards the lighted west
+    Tall spires of blossom, dimly white, define
+      A sweetness manifest.
+
+    And now the last red rim is vanishing,
+      Leaving the sky-line cold,
+    And mists, transfigured, to the grasses cling
+      Like gossamer of gold.
+
+    The dusk descends; between us and the town
+      The gliding miles increase;
+    And on our souls there settles softly down
+      An all-enfolding peace.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+POEMS OF INDIA
+
+
+
+
+I. IN A MANGO-TOPE[1]
+
+[1] Grove.
+
+
+    Between the sky-line and my feet
+      The stretch of lemon-grass is sere,
+      And, from some hidden village near,
+    There comes a single tom-tom’s beat.
+
+    High noon is grey on bush and tree,
+      The plain runs on without a change,
+      As though, for once, the eye could range
+    Through time into eternity.
+
+    And round me, in the mango-tope,
+      No sound disturbs the stillness wide
+      But the horse tethered at my side
+    Cropping the herbage of the slope.
+
+    All human stress has died away,
+      As if life, pausing, held apart,
+      As if this vain world’s fretting heart
+    Stood still to hear the silence pray.
+
+    In many a mud-walled haunt of man
+      To-night the screaming conch will blare
+      --God knows what forces throng the air
+    Above these plains of Hindoostan.
+
+    From under every banyan-tree
+      Whose roots entwine the reddened stone
+      Carved with some god that lurks alone
+    Beneath the aërial canopy,
+
+    From every grove within the land
+      Whose shadows hide a crumbling shrine
+      There seems to come some unknown sign,
+    Some touch of an undreamed-of hand.
+
+    And where, without the village wall,
+      Some woman’s soul went up in fire
+      And the thick reek above the pyre
+    Hung in mid-heaven like a pall,
+
+    Around that altar in the plain,
+      Hid though it be in jungle grass,
+      Forgotten as the seasons pass,
+    There clings the majesty of pain;
+
+    The life-through-death that has not ceased,
+      Which cannot drown in Lethe’s flood,
+      That sign of sacrificial blood
+    That stains and glorifies the East.
+
+    O land so near the veil, where life
+      Is lived beside the shore of death,
+      Which treads the rose to taste its breath
+    And wraps the garland round the knife,
+
+    Beneath the chastening of thy sun,
+      By tree and plain and jungle-shrine,
+      Whose soul through silence touches thine,
+    May know that life and death are one!
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+II. NIGHT IN THE PLAINS
+
+
+    The plains lie in the furnace of the year
+    And sleep, repenting, hides from men his boon,
+    And flagging life strains fitfully to hear
+    The tardy footstep of the slow monsoon.
+    All day the stones, the dust upon the plain,
+    From never-changing skies the heat have drawn,
+    And darkness brings no solace in its train
+    --The breeze will rise an hour before the dawn.
+
+    There is no rest; from out the heavy skies
+    The burning planets hang; now near, now far,
+    Shrilly the women’s voices fall and rise,
+    Crying to Kali in the hot bazaar.
+    There is no nightwatch but will end at last,
+    There is no vigil but will pass away,
+    The time wears on, the moon is setting fast
+    --The breeze will rise an hour before the day.
+
+    Life crouches low and fear is with the strong,
+    On every side the crawling time to mark,
+    There sound, like fevered pulses all night long,
+    The tom-toms, throbbing in the stifling dark;
+    A puff of odour from the jasmine-tree
+    Comes by the well across the parching lawn,
+    See where the hosts of heaven stand patiently,
+    --The breeze will rise an hour before the dawn.
+
+    The sick men toss, the breathless air is still;
+    Along the ward one slow, soft whisper falls,
+    Where Death’s grim angel waits to have his will
+    Within the shadow of the whitewashed walls;
+    And women’s steadfast eyes are fixed upon
+    The lurking shape whose hand they keep at bay,
+    Stand up, O souls of men, fight on, fight on!
+    --The breeze will rise an hour before the day.
+
+    Is that a shiver in the tamarind,
+    Or some awakening bird that stirs the leaves?
+    Turn, turn to sleep, there comes a breath of wind
+    And mainas talk by the verandah-eaves;
+    A little space to sleep and to forget
+    Before the tyrant sun begins his sway,
+    Ere in the heavens his brazen throne be set
+    --God give us strength to face the coming day.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+III. THE RESTING-PLACE
+
+
+    Brother, beside the jungle track, thy stone
+    Half raised, a nameless, carven slab, I see,
+    Half hidden by the tangle, secretly;
+    Where roots join twisted hands above thy head,
+    Where scarce a footfall passes save my own,
+          Nor white man’s tread.
+
+    I have been wandering since noon was high,
+    And now, because the evening comes apace,
+    Thy tomb shall be my rest a little space;
+    From thy long-vanished hand this loan I take,
+    Across the years this hospitality
+          That thou dost make.
+
+    The jungle has grown over thee, O friend,
+    For, scarce a furlong from thy buried dust,
+    Once stood a city where the great and just
+    Built high the parapet and mosque and dome,
+    Where now the creeper flings its tasselled end
+          Around their home.
+
+    How many centuries have come and gone
+    Since first thou sawest, with awakened eyes,
+    The green-scarfed houris proffering Paradise;
+    Since thy young cresent moon, athwart this shade,
+    Son of the Prophet, has in silver shone
+          Where thou art laid!
+
+    Mayhap, thy spirit loved what mine loves best;
+    The tread of horses and the pride of life,
+    The jungle’s magic and the joy of strife,
+    The long nights spent beneath the spangled sky--
+    O dead Mahommedan! Thy passing guest
+    By these accepts from thee this meed of rest
+          _Salaam, O Bhai!_[2]
+
+[2] Brother.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+IV. EVENING IN THE OPIUM FIELDS
+
+
+    As pageants, marshalled by a masterhand,
+    So are the poppy-fields; in rose and red
+    And foam of white and livid purple spread,
+    Mile upon mile, they stretch on either hand;
+    Dark by the well the heavy mangoes stand,
+    Where labouring oxen pace with dusty tread
+    And dripping water-skins climb up to shed
+    Their gush upon the irrigated land.
+
+    So cool the labyrinthine channels run,
+    Flooding the grey stems with a maze of gold;
+    For, as he nears his end, the dying sun
+    Does all the plain within his arms enfold;
+    Beneath the mangoe-trees long shadows creep,
+    Like sleep’s tread falling through the flowers of sleep.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+V. ‘GOD IS GREAT’
+
+
+           “_Allāh hu akhbar!
+            Allāh hu akhbar!
+            La ilahā illalāh!_”
+
+      Aslant upon the dusty way
+    The little mosque has thrown its shade,
+    A streak of blue at noontime laid,
+      To lengthen tardily with day;
+    And now the hour has come to pray,
+    Soldier and prince and clod--
+      ‘God is great, God is great,
+      There is no god but God!’
+
+      He stands upon the outer wall,
+    His hand upraised, his sunken eyes
+    Look westward to where Mecca lies;
+    Ho! Islam’s men, it is the call
+    To evening prayer; he cries to all,
+    Soldier and prince and clod--
+      ‘God is great, God is great,
+      There is no god but God!’
+
+      Close to the wall below his feet
+    A pomegranate, against the white,
+    Flaunts, green and scarlet, in the light,
+    Now glaring day has lost its heat;
+    Ho! Islam’s men in field and street,
+    Soldier and prince and clod--
+      ‘God is great, God is great,
+      There is no god but God!’
+
+      Dark figure, seeing inwardly
+    Through evening mist and evening balms
+    To Mecca, white among the palms,
+    Across the rolling leagues of sea,
+    At thy long cry they bend the knee,
+    Soldier and prince and clod--
+      ‘God is great, God is great,
+      There is no god but God!’
+
+    Spread at thy feet, around, beneath,
+    The world wears on amid its tears,
+    And few and evil are their years
+    Fighting their way from birth to death,
+    Soldier and prince and clod--
+    What shining city canst thou see,
+    Far off, beyond the flood of fate,
+    Where none are poor or desolate
+    That thou dost cry eternally?
+
+    There comes no answer, early, late,
+    But ‘God is great, God is great,
+      There is no god but God!’
+
+           “_Allāh hu akhbar!
+            Allāh hu akhbar!
+            La ilahā illalāh!_”
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+VI. A MAHOMMEDAN GRAVEYARD
+
+
+    Within the wall their graves are still and white,
+    Their feet turned ever southward; all the dust
+    Is thick in moonlight, and the banyans thrust
+      Long roots into the glory of the night;
+    Hanging like dusky tresses overhead,
+    Where, by the highway’s side, lie Islam’s dead.
+
+    Who sighs, who prays one prayer as he perceives,
+    So near his passing foot, that township set
+    With crumbling slab and little minaret
+      Below the lattice of the banyan leaves?
+    Who knows one name in all that silent throng
+    Whose hands have ceased from work so long--so long?
+
+    Each heart round which eternal shadow sleeps
+    Has spent the hour that we have all to spend,
+    Has waited for the coming of the end,
+      And now, who thinks, who minds, who cares, who weeps?
+    Who tells us how he faced the figure grim?
+    ’Tis words to us--it was the world to him.
+
+    How shall we nerve our hearts to bear that sight,
+    The long horizon of advancing dark,
+    That dread oblivion with no lamp nor spark
+      Of love’s remembrance to make soft the night?
+    What is there but the dull relief of tears
+    That weakness wrings from us throughout our years?
+
+    No, never that. Who stands and fights his pain
+    Can still endure. But unto him who lies
+    And seeks to ease him with his coward cries
+      Relief is not nor any rest again;
+    And who can tighten up the string anew
+    That gives beneath the straining of the screw?
+
+    O brothers! turn and look where courage stands
+    Serene and still with never-changing eye,
+    Courage to be forgot--to live--to die,
+      Stand up like men and clench your failing hands;
+    What man could dare to face the land unknown
+    With but a coward’s heart to call his own?
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+VII. CHERRY-BLOSSOM AT DAGSHAI
+
+
+    Far down below this range to-day
+      A waft of morning pureness fills
+    The blue ravines that stretch away
+      To lose themselves among the hills.
+
+    And, like a shrouded diadem,
+      Beyond the peaks set row on row,
+    Looms northern India’s mystic gem,
+      The crown of Himalayan snow.
+
+    These lower heights which close us in
+      A more ethereal jewel wear,
+    There seems, where sheer descents begin,
+      A radiant mirage in the air,
+
+    For, with its veil of rose and foam
+      A-quiver like transparent wings,
+    To the stern ramparts of its home
+      The wild hill cherry-blossom clings.
+
+    Own sister to the clouds of dawn,
+      Each magic tree o’erhangs the brink,
+    Its slender stems like lattice drawn,
+      Dark, on a fairyland of pink.
+
+    Three days agone no sign was ours,
+      No voice to cry the coming hope
+    That autumn’s wave would break in flowers
+      And roll in torrents down the slope;
+
+    But as, when darkness rends apart,
+      A shaft of glory pierces through,
+    Joy’s hand has pierced the mountain’s heart
+      And all the barren world is new.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+VIII. ‘WITH MILITARY HONOURS’
+
+
+    Take down the helmet from its dusty board,
+            Lay down his sword
+    Upon the flag that drapes his narrow bed;
+            Pace, horses, with your load,
+            Down the white road,
+    Beneath the glare by Eastern sunlight shed.
+
+    And you, ye passing men of other race,
+            Make way, give place
+    Before a freight more sacred than the gun;
+            Dark eyes of each degree
+            Look up and see
+    That well-known pageant passing in the sun.
+
+    With clank of chain and wheels the carriage goes,
+            But his repose
+    Nor sound of arms nor tramp of horse can dim;
+            Forward; the dead-march rolls,
+            Keep we our souls
+    Strong for the last that love can do for him.
+
+    Flowers, lie soft upon his weary breast,
+            He is at rest,
+    The fight he could but lose is over now;
+    Lie light, ye heartsease bands,
+            Like parting hands
+    Laying a last caress upon his brow.
+
+    Asters, twine purple like a velvet pall,
+            Cry out to all,
+    Ye heavy grave-flowers, of a new-made grief;
+            A body striving sore
+            That strives no more;
+    His night was long but daylight brought relief.
+
+    O trumpet voice of flaming marigold!
+            Tell out with bold
+    And certain tongue how great a heart lies here,
+            Until the Trumpet’s tone
+            Shall drown your own
+    And that dear head upon its time-worn bier
+            Shall wake and hear.
+
+❦
+
+
+
+
+IX. THE DISTANT TEMPLE
+
+
+    Branch of the henna-tree,
+    Blown in a temple garden far away
+    In that unfading East across the sea,
+    O for one waft of perfume from your spray
+    To cheer the heart in me!
+
+    Flower of the champa white,
+    Sown by the evening wind where dusky feet
+    Have worn the temple pavement with their beat,
+    I would lie down and give my soul to-night
+    Could I but breathe your sweet!
+
+    Note of the temple gong
+    At sunset clanging through the dusty gold,
+    Since last I heard your nightly music told
+    It seems as though the months were ages long
+    And joy itself grown old.
+
+    Heart of the East, my heart,
+    Laden with your remembrance, may not rest;
+    The very winds that blow from east to west
+    From out that far horizon-line, impart
+    Your whisper, trebly blest.
+
+    Sound of the temple drum,
+    Like distant beating of the march of fate,
+    Through the long years your voice is never dumb,
+    Calling, at sundown, from the temple gate
+    To me, who cannot come.
+
+❦
+
+
+_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+Possible printer’s errors were generally retained, including odd and
+inconsistent hyphenations, spellings, and punctuations.
+
+_Italics_, =Bolds=, and +Small Caps+ have been marked as so.
+
+Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of their respective
+stanza.
+
+Where missing in certain poems, the fleuron ❦ symbol/illustration has
+been silently added to the end.
+
+These poems have had their individual indentation or stanzas
+standardized within each poem: The Lost Track, The Soul, New Year’s
+Eve, With Military Honours.
+
+Quotation marks have been added to the 2nd stanza of Time and Space:
+‘How far, my dear, has your hand gone from mine In these long days and
+months since they have met?’
+
+In the 5th stanza of The Valley of the Kings, the final comma was kept
+instead of replacing it with a period.
+The section number of God is Great has been changed to “V.” to match
+the Table of Contents.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78110 ***