LITMIR.BIZ

      No; lovers yet shall tell the nightingale

      Sometimes a song that we of old time made,

      And gossips gathered at the twilight ale

      Shall say, “Those two were friends,” or, “Unafraid

      Of bitter thought were those because they loved

      Better than most.” And sometimes shall be told

      How one, who died in his young beauty, moved,

      As Astrophel, those English hearts of old.

      And the new seas shall take the new ships home

      Telling how yet the Dymock orchards stand,

      And you shall walk with Julius at Rome,

      And Paul shall be my fellow in the Strand;

      There in the midst of all those words shall be

      Our names, our ghosts, our immortality.

      Confederate hand and eye

      Work to the chisel’s blade,

      Setting the grain aglow

      Of porch and sturdy beam —

      So the strange gods may ply

      Strict arms till we are made

      Quick as the gods who know

      What builds behind this dream.

      I saw history in a poet’s song,

      In a river-reach and a gallows-hill,

      In a bridal bed, and a secret wrong,

      In a crown of thorns: in a daffodil.

      I imagined measureless time in a day,

      And starry space in a waggon-road,

      And the treasure of all good harvests lay

      In the single seed that the sower sowed.

      My garden-wind had driven and havened again

      All ships that ever had gone to sea,

      And I saw the glory of all dead men

      In the shadow that went by the side of me.

      The doves call down the long arcades of pine,

      The screaming swifts are tiring towards their eaves,

      And you are very quiet, O lover of mine.

      No foot is on your ploughlands now, the song

      Fails and is no more heard among your leaves

      That wearied not in praise the whole day long.

      I have watched with you till this twilight-fall,

      The proud companion of your loveliness;

      Have you no word for me, no word at all?

      The passion of my thought I have given you,

      Striving towards your passion, nevertheless,

      The clover leaves are deepening to the dew,

      And I am still unsatisfied, untaught.

      You lie guarded in mystery, you go

      Into your night, and leave your lover naught.

      Would I were Titan with immeasurable thews

      To hold you trembling, lover of mine, and know

      To the full the secret savour that you use

      Now to my tormenting. I would drain

      Your beauty to the last sharp glory of it;

      You should work mightily through me, blood and brain.

      Your heart in my heart’s mastery should burn,

      And you before my swift and arrogant wit

      Should be no longer proudly taciturn.

      You should bend back astonished at my kiss,

      Your wisdom should be armourer to my pride,

      And you, subdued, should yet be glad of this.

      The joys of great heroic lovers dead

      Should seem but market-gossiping beside

      The annunciation of our bridal bed.

      And now, my lover earth, I am a leaf,

      A wave of light, a bird’s note, a blade sprung

      Towards the oblivion of the sickled sheaf;

      A mere mote driven against your royal ease,

      A tattered eager traveller among

      The myriads beating on your sanctuaries.

      I have no strength to crush you to my will,

      Your beauty is invulnerably zoned,

      Yet I, your undefeated lover still,

      Exulting in your sap am clear of shame,

      And biding with you patiently am throned

      Above the flight of desolation’s aim.

      You may be mute, bestow no recompense

      On all the thriftless leaguers of my soul —

      I am at your gates, O lover of mine, and thence

      Will I not turn for any scorn you send,

      Rebuked, bemused, yet is my purpose whole,

      I shall be striving towards you till the end.

      Lord, not for light in darkness do we pray,

      Not that the veil be lifted from our eyes,

      Nor that the slow ascension of our day

      Be otherwise.

      Not for a clearer vision of the things

      Whereof the fashioning shall make us great,

      Not for remission of the peril and stings

      Of time and fate.

      Not for a fuller knowledge of the end

      Whereto we travel, bruised yet unafraid,

      Nor that the little healing that we lend

      Shall be repaid.

      Not these, O Lord. We would not break the bars

      Thy wisdom sets about us; we shall climb

      Unfettered to the secrets of the stars

      In Thy good time.

      We do not crave the high perception swift

      When to refrain were well, and when fulfil,

      Nor yet the understanding strong to sift

      The good from ill.

      Not these, O Lord. For these Thou hast revealed,

      We know the golden season when to reap

      The heavy-fruited treasure of the field,

      The hour to sleep.

      Not these. We know the hemlock from the rose,

      The

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