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EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908328-91-8
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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.
Printed by Wkilcombe & Tombs Limited, 90407
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/books/ALMA1929-9917503813502836-The-desolate-star--and-other-poe
Bibliographic details
APA: Hyde, Robin. (1929). The desolate star, and other poems. Whitcombe & Tombs.
Chicago: Hyde, Robin. The desolate star, and other poems. Christchurch, N.Z.: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1929.
MLA: Hyde, Robin. The desolate star, and other poems. Whitcombe & Tombs, 1929.
Word Count
5,305
The desolate star, and other poems Hyde, Robin, Whitcombe & Tombs, Christchurch, N.Z., 1929
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