The desolate star, and other poems

Hyde, Robin, Whitcombe & Tombs, Christchurch, N.Z., 1929

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EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908328-91-8

PDF ISBN: 978-0-908331-87-1

The original publication details are as follows:

Title: The desolate star, and other poems

Author: Hyde, Robin

Published: Whitcombe & Tombs, Christchurch, N.Z., 1929

The Desolate Star And Other Poems

BY ROBIN HYDE

PRINTED BY

WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED

CHRISTCHURCH

To J. H. E. S.

fVhose friendship has meant so much to this book.

CONTENTS

PAGE

The Desolate Star 5

Ghosts 6

The English Trees 8

Hanmer Woods 9

Running Water 10

Seekers 11

South 12

Dream World 13

Silence 15

The Farmer’s Wife 16

Division 17

The Trees 18

Conflagration 20

Quietude 22

Growing Old 23

Knights and the Dragon 24

The Last Gift 25

Tryst 27

CONTENTS

Half Moon 28

Desert 30

Mists in the City 31

In Memory 33

Hospital 34

Wind of Spring 36

Over the Fields 38

Dust 39

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

The usual acknowledgments for permission to reprint poems in this book arc due to The Sun, Christchurch; The Sun, Auckland; The Star, Auckland; The Sydney Bulletin; Art in New Zealand; N.Z. Artists' Annual; Aussie; and The Triad.

5

The Desolate Star

Little winds of dawn come gently to them,

All the living stars, the other stars.

Dim rains passionate with scents bedew them.

My brother stars,

And I go, lonely.

Steadfast and clear their shining—

Are the shadows, and the song of the.wind's pining

For ever, mine only .'

Ah, the winds arc kind to them! They know not,

They whose flowers quicken at their heart,

Of the darkness where the life-fires glow not,

Where, set apart,

I must follow, lost

On a blue road's descending,

Which, for years that know not birth or ending

No wayfarer has crossed.

Purple-plumed, the nesting twilight covers

All their golden windows. One last gleam

.Shows me tranquil gardens, where go lovers

With eyes adream.

And I go, lonely,

Remembering lovelit faces—

Is the cry of the wind's going through empty spaces,

For ever, mine only?

6

Ghosts

We two are ghosts; lightly we walk for ever,

Through azure twilight, through young silver rain....

(There was an ominous dream that stooped; again Its black wings beat; its harsh voice echoed, "Never!"

Its cold lips cried, "My hand has broken up

The pattern of your rainbow—all the bright

Translucent colours, all the tender light

Like bubbles prisoned in an opal cup,

Spilled on grey soil, that grows not even flowers.")

Now the slim bluegums strain against the wind

A dark hill climbs before us; and behind

Night builds her secret town, her dreaming towers.

So well we know the hidden way . . . and ghosts.

Come home to earth, are free of weariness.

Say, did the little unseen grasses press

Your feet so kindly, on those starry coasts

But let this hour be earth's! Ah, let the scent

Of cold young crescent leaves creep through my hair!

Lie still at last, feel faintly beating near

The heart of the friendly world! Be well content

With this beloved touch of grass and dew....

What unfamiliar music holds the night I

See the stars trail like jewelled birds their bright

Pinions of flame, on that same sky we knew

10

GHOSTS

If there be change, it lies in us. And yet,

As of old years, caught close to you, the glow

Of joy like dawning takes me. Scarce I know

Why words are broken, eyes and faces wet

Look not too far, in purple sky and sea.

For where the waves creep outward with the tide

There waits a mist, and strangeness—all the wide

Ocean of space, to sever you and me.

The English Trees

Never the scent of hawthorns, fragrant after rain

Shall make them dream again

Such dreams as England's lovers understand

Of quiet homesteads in an English land

The little high-walled garden that encloses

Lawns white with dew, a crimson snare of roses.

The deep-grassed fields, where cows, with serious eyes.

Watch the blue dance of Devon butterflies.

Never the hawthorn trees shall guard them where they sleep

(Quiet their rest and deep

Nor, when the little winds light-footed pass.

Shall silver petals drift along the grass.

But Flemish poplars, in their foreign tongue

Through solemn dusks shall whisper, "They died young''—

With England's careless courage, faithful to

The spired Camelots they never knew

Never again the breath of hawthorns through the morn,

Song of a thrush forlorn,

Shall bring such dreams of Rosalind as stray,

Clear-eyed, brown-throated, half the world away

Dreams shall not trouble their eyes; but on our shore

The English trees are stranger trees no more

The golden youth that signed our fathers' page

Won all green Arden for our heritage.

8

9

Hanmer Woods

Autumn will walk there, with a breath of Stardust,

With the burnt brown fronds of bracken in her hair \

Autumn will come with the frost on briar berries.

And clean blue mornings, and smoke-hazed air

Autumn will run like a boy among the birch trees,

Bittersweet of berries that the birds love on her lips

With the first frosts crunching in the wet-leaved woodways,

And the last leaf crimson on the maple tips.

Crying of birds will flutter through the forest

When dawn-rains deepen the turquoise in the pool

When the bright sun drips from the brown-haired fir tree,

And larch boughs quiver in little winds and cool

Autumn will come, and I among the redgums

Will feel again the stirring of slender dreams as these:

Bright flax gleaming through the foreign larches,

And a bellbird chiming in the maple trees.

Harming Water

I sit beside a little shadowy stream,

And try to tell in words my thoughts of you.

It is in vain

The running waters quiver, beckon, gleam,

The running water glitters through my brain.

Dragon-fly blue.

The irises are sweet with half-forgotten rain.

Their dark heads bend beneath their diadems of dew,

One petal falls, and, like a little boat,

Clings drowning where the yellow rushes float

The waters with soft fingers draw it down.

So, one by one, my petal fancies drown,

And all my unborn words

Pall and flutter and sink, like wounded birds

Cool waters close above them. Silver-grey,

The running waters hurry them away

13

Seekers

If once a dreamer, in some ancient town

Found him a love with breast and tresses brown,

And in her low voice heard what all men seek—

Courage, and steadfast heart, and kindness —speak;

Or if a warrior, on his last dark field,

Stood by his wounded comrade, shield to shield,

And, wiping blood from bearded lips, took cheer

To see that staunch young face unflinching near;

And if, far down the dim ancestral line.

Lover and soldier stand, kindred of mine,

Lord, let the splendour of such memories,

A rainbow, bridge the perished days and these.

And let that brown, slim woman, love and wife,

Whose soft breast held the life that gave me life,

Stray sometimes from her deep-dewed golden lands,

With comfort of cool lips and quiet hands,

Move down the woods of dream, the purple hill,

To tell me earth shall bear such lilies still

Let that lost warrior, young and shining-eyed,

Stand by me, lend me strength to fling aside

The poor, stained shield of doubt, the cynic's dress,

Choosing his own clear faith in friendliness.

Let those who sought, and found the haven nigh,

Be comrade to this seeker that is I

14

South

God send my ship of dreams to-night

Far voyaging,

Seeking for sunsets that have waited long

For any eye to see

Their awful radiance of revelation:

The golden wings of the creative spirit

Still brooding over ice and lifeless ocean

The seed and flower still locked within the brain

That dreams of setting grass, and fluttering

Small breasts of birds, and naked limbs of children,

In wastes transformed. Then let my lost ship find

The giant and fantastic passages,

Ice-caverns mocking, green and insolent

The hoary blizzards mounted on their walls—

Citadels that shall take so long to storm.

So long for sun and milk-white wind to ride

Triumphant, roses springing 'neath their feet....

My ears shall hear a little of the surge

Of aeons still to break; my eyes shall see

A little of this star's long destiny.

15

Dream World

If this be true, that God's will, being spoken

Is shown fulfilled in these unfettered hours • '

If, dreaming, we behold life's thread unbroken

And know the immortality of flowers;

If, from the deepest caverns of our dreaming,

Evil and good put on their awful shapes

Till man may see his sharp-winged angels gleaming.

Watch his Bacchante crush her blood-red grapes;

If neither word nor thought of ours shall perish

But all be woven, like the spider's thread ;

To meadows holding every dream we cherish

Their silver pastures trodden by the dead.

Where all is strange with sunshine and with shadow

Caged in a world made real by man's own will,

Where his own nymphs await him in the meadow,

And his own seraphs bugle from the hill;

If dreaming, he may know what trees he planted,

What dizzy flowers, what tall and foreign erain

He sowed for harvest in the fields enchanted

What streams he filled with honey or with bane-

13

DREAM WORLD

Whether my thought sang Splendour down from Heaven,

Or lured the shaggy terrors out of Hell,

I shall walk firm, by stony road or even,

And know that on the summits all is well

Oh Love, I shall not fear the storm of faces,

The swords of the chimseric army ranged.

For I have seen, surmounting desolate places,

A Radiance, that bore your smile unchanged.

17

Silence

I am tired of all voices. Friend and fool

Have come too nearly with me to the shrine

That is the secret kept by wind and pine.

Now, when the shadowy hands of dusk are cool

About my eyes, shall silence like a god

Drive them with whips of starlight from his stairs.

Only the small grass striving in its clod,

Only the stream, that fragile moonlight bears

Like blossoms on its breast, move in this place.

All earth lies still as some beloved face

Whose dreaming mouth and deep-curved eyelids make

Bridges to God that lightest sound would break,

Towers where one word would seem iconoclast....

Yet if through darkening trees you came at last,

Wearing the dew of meadows on your shoon,

And in your eyes the blessing of the moon,

I think it would he well. I think our greeting

Would be as quiet as two rivers meeting,

Which, drawn together, sparkling up in foam,

Slide into one bright seeking; and our home

Should be the furthest longing of pale seas,

Beyond the purple caverns of the trees.

18

The Farmer’s Wife

She stands a moment in the sun.

Athwart her harsh land's red and green—

Hands of a serf, and warrior eyes

Of some flame-sceptred Irish queen—

One moment, still. A little sob

Shakes parted lips and straining breast

As if she heard the feet of those

Who tread her own forsaken quest

As if she did not care that Life

Had snatched the jewels from her hair

But grieved that menial needs and base

Were they which left her palace bare.

Then, with a strange and iron hand.

Destiny reaches forth and grips

The ruined cities in her eyes,

The bitter beauty of her lips.

19

Division

If it were nothing but some sheer abyss

Opened between us; if some icy sea,

Whose sword of waters clove 'twixt kiss and kiss.

Hid your small garden's dreaming face from me,

I should have faith, and parting would have end

I think our feet would cross on rainbows, friend

For love knows patient ways of building strong

Bridges and stairs. Love flies with secret wings

Love's shining wind shakes cities with a song,

Swirls wet pink blossoms round bewildered kings.

But there is more to conquer—all that long

Pageant of ghosts, in stained and tattered dress-

The swift, mistaken word, the unmeant wrong,

The pride, grown harsh at last for loneliness.

20

The Trees

I saw the little leaves that havr

So gay a dance, their tiny veins

Skilfully painted by some grave.

Firm hand, that spared not love or pains.

And here a mystery was wrought

In secret letters hard to find;

Each leaf was perfect, each a thought

Made shapely in the dreamer's mind

In caverns deep beneath the earth

The blind roots twist. They do not know

How their boughs rock with April's mirth,

Or feel the ripening Autumn's glow;

And the swift tides of sap that pass

Prom gloom to sunshine have no words

To tell the lovely scents of grass,

The plash of rain, the call of birds.

Yet still the blind, brown fingers grope

And wrench asunder rocky bars

For no reward but some dim hope

And far-off knowledge of the stars.

Ob Life! In caverns deep as these

We build and break. In dusk profound

As any plumbed by ancient trees

We wander blindly underground

21

THE TREES

And blindly from strange soil we drink

The very milk of mother Earth

The secret rivers, by whose brink

Nor daffodil nor scent has birth

Nor may we know how swiftly these

Dark tides shall gift our boughs with wings,

Shall blossom into melodies

And starry-plumed immortal things.

But, where the tree of Man grows tall

And soars to straightness from its clod.

Widen the flowers that shall not fall,

Whereof the perfume pleases God.

22

Conflagration

The seed was aye a foreigner,

Blown on swart winds from lands afar.

Borne by strange birds with crimson wings

From islands of an evil star.

From many a siren-haunted shore

Beaconing death to driven ships

Seed-tentacles sprang forth to choke

The laughter on my Eden's lips

Cypresses such as shadowed o'er

Moon-temples of an ancient stain

Shut out Thy gold of sunshine, Lord,

The falling silvers of Thy rain

Great lilies swayed, like those strange nymphs

Whose death-white lips and hair of gold

Drew men through secret depths to find

Pearl arms and bosoms icy cold

Reeds from the satyr-streams grew tall

And upas trees of poisoned breath

Beneath whose dark, enchanted boughs

A dream might slumber into death

Lord, now that this invaders' horde

Is swept by Thy destroying flame,

See what a scarred and blackened land

Awaits Thy pity on her shame.

20

CONFLAGRA TION

Yet o'er her stray wind-fingers soft;

The mist leans low to her pain, and grieves;

Under her breast small fingers stir

Fingers unborn of tiny leaves.

Peace to the desolate, 0 Lord!

Ah, let her grass grow long and sweet,

Till it shall kiss the tiredness

From children's little naked feet

24

Quietude

Along the crumbling walls grey lichens creep

Nothing will grow but drowsy poppy seeds

That hold the listless chalices of sleep

In a child's garden, covered up with weeds.

I will go now and find some ordered place

Of lawns and old-time gardens, where the earth

Has grown with aging like a lovely face

That is not greatly stirred by any mirth

No passions storm or sadden in her eyes;

No follies jingle bells along her street;

And every grief, grown decorous and wise.

Must go his ways with patient lips and feet

A little smoke from dead-leaf memories

Shall curl, blue-grey; and I will dwell beside

A wood where blackbirds call, where the old trees

Harbour no dreams save those grown quiet-eyed.

Here, where good rain is given to careful lawns

Perhaps my peace will slowly come to flower,

And I forget the scent of troubled dawns,

The broken petals of a magic hour.

22

Growing Old

This it is to grow old,

That I shall lose

The gift of laughter at small and simple things;

And, if ever old dreams fly past me, the brush of wings,

Damp with Elysian dews.

Will seem strange and cold,

I shall have naught but wondering pity for those

That are all of loveliness now, the flame and the rose.

I shall despise

The sudden tears that music brings to the eye 6.

26

Knights and the Dragon

I found no dragon, and the maid,

His prey, was dead these many years

—— *j j And slumbered in a little glade

Of purple flowers, bright with tears.

They said all mortal swords must fail

Against the necromancer-thing

That dimmed her beauty as a veil,

And hid her tresses' glimmering.

The plumed knights would come and go

About her gates; but none was bold

To seek the icy, mocking foe

That stole away her white and gold,

Her purple flowers filled with dew

There in the dusk, I knew the truth—

This dragon was the locust, who

Had eaten all her leaves of youth

27

The Last Gift

I have taken so much of vour beauty, oh deep kind Earth,

Face on your soft old face, heart on your warm heart lying—

Scent of rain in the leaves and the small stream's bubble of mirth,

Hush of the sad-eyed pool that is dark with night birds' crying.

Stars drowned deep in the lake, sunset's flame in a pine,

Secret clutching fingers of baby ferns, close-curled

These are a stain of scent from a cool old perfumed wine

That sleeps in a carven chalice blue-glazed in the dawn of the world.

Behold, Life's gipsy goes clad in the glory of rainbow 'a end!

He steals the gold for his heart from a forest of wind bright broom;

And the wise hills speak to his ears, and the white stars call him friend,

And stoop their stately candles to lighten his way of gloom.

25

THE LAST GIFT

Life that has given so much, yield me the power to give!

Grant that thy ghosts of beauty, lost and pale in my brain,

Born again of my lips, may come to blossom and live,

Till their scent give peace to earth, like the scent of April rain.

Give me the gift of grass that is harp for summer's wind,

Gift of rain on the leaves, or the dawn’s first magical bird,

That dreams like angels may come to trouble the eyes of the blind,

With the flame of beauty suddenly caught and clad in a word.

29

Tryst

Lie at twilight down amongst the grass.

Let the brown gorse stoop above you there.

Let the crushed fern tangle in your hair,

Close beside a road where few men pass.

Breathe the scent of little, earthly things.

Let the twilight touch you, breast and brow,

As a harper, weaving wistful strings,

Tells the gleam of star-flowers withered now.

Drink the cup of silence deep for me,

Knowing that my spirit stands beside.

Let the purple dusk, the lover sea,

Beauty's passion, take you for a bride

Yet, if one beloved should be near,

If his lips be tender on thy hair.

Take the hour, nor think my ghost must tread

Home on lonely ways with bended head

For to-night, forgetting ancient bars.

I am master over wind and stars.

I can make the dying clover sweet —

Charm the stars like blossoms round your feet:

Lips that kindle into holy speech

Whisper but again the words I teach;

Arms that hold you give you but again

Shadow of our splendour and our pain

Lie at twilight, where the grasses twine....

Life's long kiss against your eyes is mine.

n

Half Moon

The little pools of starlight splash

Against the poplars' slender lines;

The moon is like a golden comb

Caught in the tresses of the pines.

Go quietly, lest unaware

You find the leafless path that leads

To where an older god than God

Makes cruel music through the reeds.

The lilies float like slender hands

Towards a satyr-trampled brink

With crowns of oakleaves in their hair

The shouting fauns come down to drink

Not Innocency's self shall walk

These breathless ways and shall not see

The wine-stained lips and dangerous eyes

The swart-faced folk of Arcady;

And lovers, who have wandered through

The clover-purple evening's peace,

Have seen, deep-breasted, insolent,

The mocking loveliness of Greece—

28

HALF MOON

Have heard the lawless bugles sing

From that defiant Paradise,

And glimpsed, like moonlight through the trees,

The glory of unearthly eyes.

And never shall the watcher seek

His tender human loves again

For marble-white, with singing lips, The woodmaids glimmer through his brain

Go quietly. The tall gods here

Would wear your beauty like a flower,

To crush with jests and cast aside

In one unpitying, splendid hour.

2<)

Desert

Here is no joy, to gleam like jewelled waters

Of those blue lakes that desert-goers find,

No little rain of peace, no dew of dreaming

No chalice for the thirsting of my mind.

Bold and blue, the mirage of many palm trees.

Of mocking fountains, grows and glimmers nigh

I stumble, clutch at ghostly sapphires, waken

Blind in the sand, with lips and fingers dry

Are you indeed a guarded city? Wander

Old wisdoms and young ardours in your street?

Does ever Pity, in some fragrant courtyard,

Unloose the sandals from the traveller's feet?

And does your palace keep such darkling perfumes

Such songs as haunted men since time began,

Somewhere, beyond the desert of your silence.

Beyond the last bewildered caravan?

Daylong you haunt my dream, a restless legend

Of sharp blue towers nobody can find

Their calling bells remembered in the twilight

By men who seek no more, grown old and blind

Does the wind lie, that leans against your bosom,

Touches your hair, and suddenly is sweet,

Where naught prevaileth but the sun's white passion,

The blind, long desert, burning for my feet?

30

Mists in the City

The mists came drifting down the street

With silken wings, with silent feet;

And suddenly, on Lambton Quay.

There fell a veil of ecstasy.

The passers-by, the weary folk

Put on the blue, enchanted cloak:

Their hurried ways grew grave and wise

The dreams were naked in their eyes.

The golden wings of lamplight lay

Quivering on a world of grey

And crooked streets climbed up the hill

To waiting gardens, wet and still

Against the lamplight's little fires

A city made of climbing spires,

Of towers graven in amethyst,

Rose sharply from a sea of mist;

And twilight's strange and azure dress

Made magic out of ugliness,

Till one who looked could see the fine

Sharp etchings of a Hand divine —

As if God suddenly said to man.

'' See ! You have laboured to my plan.

With blind eyes, with stupid hands,

Made beautiful my barren lands,

And in a desert reft of flowers

Have builded blue miraculous towers—

Almost as tall a mystery

As the least leaf on the least tree.

31

MISTS IN THE CITY

You built warped houses, crooked lanes.

That I might hang the stars in chains

About the city's naked throat

Blind hearts, I set you free to break

Your Arcady, that you might make

Chaos, a world where weary men

Should learn to love the stars again

Now, with one touch, I wipe away

The childish error of your day

And Beauty walks with shining feet

And shining eyes in every street."

The mists came floating down the night

With silken wings, with footsteps light.

The weary folk, the weary men

They walked and talked with dreams again •

And glory, in a shining sea

Of moonrise, lay on Lambton Quay.

32

In Memory

Only one gleaming year ago—

Birth of daffodils, flight of snow —

You who are quiet, can you guess

How Spring's scarce-wakened loveliness

Startles, like golden, sudden song,

Boughs that were leafless overlong.'

Darkly now, in dew-soaked earth,

Small forgotten seeds give birth

To slender-poising, radiant things,

Petals light as lifted wings;

Opening to sunshot rain

Wild hyacinths are blue again. .. .

Dear, somewhere your dark tree of Death

Has little leaves, and blossometh

Petals born in Paradise

Brush dewy lips against my eyes.

(Such their fragrance, faint and rare,

Who finds them shall forget despair.)

Dear, not alone the spring fires burn

Through sapling pine and folded fern:

Quickened by longings, stirred by pain.

The soul bears purple bloom again

36

Hospital

In that white, unending wall

Little dwarfish echoes dwell,

Who would think that they, so small

Could so mock a man in Hell ?

If I say the softest thing,

If one ghost escapes my brain

All night long they sit again

Whispering . . . whispering.

Say I, "She is walking now

Where the branches, bending low,

Flake with applebloom her brow.

Why should she, the swift, walk slow ?

She forgot so long ago

That carved heart upon the bough

Go your ways, youth-sandalled feet

Half, perhaps, remembering

Lad's love, in the twilight sweet!—

But a man's a stronger thing."

All night long the echoes leant

Whispering words that were not meant. . . .

Or I say, "When she shall see

Dim boughs of a blossomed tree,

She 'll remember, being young.''

And a little venomed tongue

Laughs and laughs, the livelong night,

From behind the shaded light

37

HOSPITAL

'' Or,'' I say, '' if she were here —

Brook-brown eyes and tawny hair,

Like a bush flower, straight and tall,

Whose dew shines, but does not fall—

One small fawn-gloved hand would reach

Those still depths not meant for speech

But she follows, follows still

Through grey ti-trees, over the hill,

That strong eagle, her wind-lover.

Oh small feet, must you discover

Those lost sunsets whispered long

In your golden eagle's song,

Hills purple in twilight, trees

Whispering through eternities,

And the wet face of the rain ?

"He will never walk again."

"Oh, small feet, are you so bold?

And your lover's lips are cold-

Old as God he is." And then

All the little dwarfish men

Scream with laughter. Whispering

All the little voices ring.

Till the moonstone blue of morn

Cradled in black pines is born.

And the day is here again. . . .

Thank God, for the lips of pain

38

Wind of Spring

Wind, blow softly to-day, lest you should lift

Ten years' careful curtain before our eyes.

Wind of Spring, go lightly as petals drift;

Trouble us not with fragrance, lest we know

Passions keen as flame to walk at our side

Once again, the terror and hope and pride;

Lest again in our hearts should burn the slow

Tears that saved men shed for the ransom-price.

Touch not the grass, that better were left unstirred

Under the trees they loved, the faithful trees

Start no song of youth's remembering bird

Lest, like sharp blue scimitars, memories

Cleave through their quiet, dream they never so deep

Better it is to forget, better to sleep.

Wind, you are freighted with wisdom. Lover and saint,

King and shepherd, have given you all their tale

Flying by Nineveh town, you gather the faint

Broken songs of men that triumph or fail

Wind agleam in the blossoms, know then the truth:

Never the dreamers builded their city of youth

Never the spired azure towers have grown

Over the lives laid down for a cornerstone,

Never the reapers sing through Canaan won

Field and orchard white to a risen sun

Yet, should They listen, hearing with patient ears

All the vanished hopes of the vanished years,

39

WIND OF SPRING

Wind of Spring, adream where the petals drift

Ask them now the rich and ultimate gift

Seek the field where the wooden crosses stand,

Guarding England's glory in Holy Land.

Pilgrim wind, with wondering heart draw near-

Half the treasure of earth lies buried here.

Wait amid the poppies; with bended head,

Ask for faith, of the faithful-hearted dead.

40

Over the Fields

A way lies over these blue fields of sleep,

Lingers in short, sweet grasses, glimmers white

Through woods of silver birch trees, where in deep

Green quietness the winds lie hid from sight

Meadow and stream and house of lighted window

Each listens for the sound of passing feet

And knows my step again, and gives me welcome

In still ways and sweet.

It is not strange at all that you should pass

Turn back and smile, stand presently in dream

Beside the little coppice on the stream.

Where willow leaves lie tangled in the grass.

It is not strange at all that there should be

The little fallen leaves, caught in your dress,

And your voice saying forgotten things to me,

Forgotten tenderness.

Hardly I wonder that we walk together,

And talk of simple things, winds, birds, and skies,

Or that lost dreams laugh suddenly in greeting

From the dark woods in your eyes.

But standing with the shadow of dawn above us

By the grey stream's broken gleaming,

We whisper thanks to those old gods that love us.

For night, for dreaming.

38

Dust

One day a gipsy rose beside the shrine

Grew bold and entered in. Perhaps the god,

Grown with two thousand empty years or more

A little blind, a little deaf and odd

Thought that again the grave procession trod

By careful, secret pathways through the trees,

And there some maid, with perfumes in her breast

That an old god might know, though all the rest

Of beauty's laughter mocked his centuries,

Besought the oracle upon her knees.

And the stone head, remembering its wreath

Of incense, bowed to emptiness beneath

As slow green water bubbles, breaks, and drips,

The strange words formed on lichen-shaggy lips.

The silence of the dusty ages broke

Pleased with the wafted prayer, the old god spoke

He told how first the planets one by one

Like frightened children clustered round the sun

How on the mountains never foot has trod

Glimmered the gods that are the moods of God

How music with the little leaves was born.

And dancing when the white mists wreathed the morn;

How first mankind, with wondering, childish eyes,

Knelt worshipping the glory of the skies,

And God conceived the snake to some wise plan

And then forgot His scheme and punished man;

How sweeter music, stranger, subtler bliss

Whs born when Eve swayed close for Adam's kiss;

And how in innocence, unwittingly,

39

DUST

Man built a better world than Aready;

How with the half-gods whispering at his ears

He made him citadels along the years,

Till Mind grew tall, and Wisdom went on wings,

And with serene, bright foreheads sate the kings,

And eagle Youth, unknowing of its bars.

Cried "Life!" in challenge to the icy stars;

(One wove a song, one carved an ivory tower;

God, watching, shaped the petals of a flower

And laid along the bosom of a girl

The little mingled lights of brown and pearl,

And hid so soft an odour in the blue

Bowed heads of hyacinths weighed down with dew,

Imperishable Wisdom tore its wings

Seeking through thorns for little earthly things,

And Youth of shining helmet bent its head

To dream of loveliness an seon dead.)

How in some orchard, with one delicate spray

Etched faint against the evening's silver-grey,

King and philosopher, the strong and wise,

Have looked for God with young, beseeching eyes,

Forgetting all the splendid ends of strife,

Prayed only that some slender bloom have life,

While yet the sky no mystery discloses

But the blind, bitter answer of new roses.

silence like twilight fell. The god had done. .. .

The little rose, impatient, tossed her head,

Half-mocking what the dotard god had said

And half afraid. The empty shrine grew cold.

She turned to seek the yellow Grecian sun.

The quiver of the grass, the talk of birds

And childish brooks, that knew no ominous words;

And a wind blew about her. One by one

The petals fluttered from her heart of gold.

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