Classic Poem

I

Restful he watches, and hears the trouble of sleep, —
Love, the shepherd of men, with his gaze set far:
Over the darkened fold and the herded sheep,
Round the breast of the world he watches a Star.

II

Under him earth moves slow; far off lies the dawn;
Comes no gleam as yet through the darkness felt:
Naught but yon Star for a sign; till (night withdrawn)
Faint on awakened Heaven the Star shall melt.

III

Heart, unto Love give all, and the rest is well!
Pain thou shalt know, and sorrow, — bear grief and scorn;
Yet have the high Gods come for a shrine to the shell;
Thy flesh hath endured the birth for which Earth was born!

IV

Beautiful Heart, no rest in the world for me!
Sleeping I find thee not, and waking know thou art gone.
Here is a door set wide for a coming that never shall be;
And all my world is a want for the heart that I rest not on.

V

Beautiful Heart, ah! hadst thou never been born
Thus attainless to me, Love would have spared me this: —
Hunger, and thirst, and longing, the gentle light of thy scorn,
And coldly from mine thy gaze turning away the bliss.

VI

Faithful the lover cries, " Ah, once to have proved
Life in the quick delight of the flesh that was then so fair! "
Nay, fond heart, not so shall the face of the deep be moved:
Prove thy life upon this, — a joy that has passed to air!

VII

Surely the ills of Earth are many, and meet to be borne;
Hunger, and thirst, and cold, man's body was made to bear,
But oh, for the ills of Heaven! — the love that is paid by scorn,
And beauty silent and flown from the heart that it once spoke fair.

VIII

Shall I go sadder now, O Beloved, that the world holds thee, —
Breath of my bliss and pain? Was once to have known thee loss?
Sadder I needs must go, since ever mine eyes now see
Heights I may not attain, gulfs that I shall not cross.
. . . . . .

IX


Beautiful Heart, the dawn awakens in gold, —
Light, through its handmaid air, goes glancing free;
Heaven his wealth flings wide. With joy untold,
Somewhere, far off in the world, day shines on thee.

X

Love, like a mote, leaps forth to the morning beam, —
Down he glides, then up, and is off anew:
Butterfly Love, adrift on a golden stream,
Blessing the wide-eyed day that awakens you.

XI

Beautiful Heart, as the eyes that are blind love light,
With the love of a waterless land ere the rains appear, —
So without comfort of thee I attain my right,
So shall my heart by its hunger to thine be near.
. . . . . .

XII

Rises the lark with the dawn: dull earth at his feet
Wakes, and kindles, remote from the sounds that soar
Upward through light. But oh, more distant, more sweet,
The voice of my lover still heard — that I hear no more!
. . . . . .

XIII

Ah, Love divine, why then hast thou given me sense
To see, and hear, and clasp, — feel hunger and thirst?
Let me have help of these ere I vanish hence:
For man, though he love thee after, must love life first!

XIV

" Open thine eyes, " said Love, " yea, tune thine ears,
Reach thy hand to the touch, and clasp, and be filled!
Till over the seas of desire, so tossed by fears,
Comes the spirit which rules when the waves are stilled. "
. . . . . .

XV

Beautiful Heart, in my solitude now what track
Can I trace, as day brings day with never a word?
Now, when the voice is mute, how the hours come back
Of nights when you lay at my side, and no sound was heard.
. . . . . .

XVI

Faces of careworn men that in field and street
Pass me with looks resigned, Love lend you grace!
You, as you pass unknown, have quickened my feet;
Early or late, we come to the resting-place.

XVII

Surely, by care man comes to the wished-for goal;
Where runs the furrow, the hope of the harvest lies.
Come, then, Care, be fellow to body and soul,
Till the day of the sheaves brings cover for breast and eyes!

XVIII

Doubtless Love shall return, in ways unguessed.
Out of the past comes memory bearing sheaves;
There when I turn, and heavy of heart seek rest,
Birds of passage have hung all night in the eaves.

XIX

Beautiful Heart, having held can I let thee go?
Nay! for with vision clear I count my gain.
Forth to the world's far ends the wind shall blow
This shape of dust. But on it thy touch will remain.

XX

Oh, common dust, blown wide through the world's highways,
Naught can I hold in scorn that I touch or see!
May not some lover's arms, — some lover's gaze —
Find you more fair than ever my love found me?

XXI

Blindly I looked on light as I knelt at the sacred knees,
And, gazing, through eyes daubed thick with the healing clay, found Love!
For there, to left and to right, I saw men walking as trees,
And one in their midst, O form most fair! O nest for a dove!

XXII

High in the air, like clouds, an army of banners blew
Over the heads of women and men close-ranked for fight:
Where thousands came marching as one, there first I met you, —
And suddenly broke on my blindness a vision of light.

XXIII

I shall not see that City, made bright by the boughs that wave
Green in the golden streets, when Nations come to be healed:
But there, where the ransomed meet, they will march by a dead man's grave;
And the light of the love they have found will shine on the potter's field.
. . . . . .

XXIV

Go, rejoice in thy strength, fair Branch, and with lifted head
Join the glad throng of thy fellows, leap up into light and air!
Here, for comfort at length, I have found me a marriage-bed, —
Darkness, and no more pain, — a rest from the days that were.

XXV

Beautiful root of Life, made ready and quick to grow,
Take from me this gift, — dark mould and a bed of clay:
So shall you find it rife with the sheddings of long ago, —
Autumn's fall, and the drift of a world that has learned decay.
. . . . . .

XXVI

Sightless and scentless, here lie ghosts of lives that like you
Had beauty of form and limb, and the grace of a thousand dawns:
They, too, tasted the cool of a morning crowned with dew, —
Heard, when the world first woke, the voices of upland lawns.

XXVII

Few are the years thou hast known, O face of a thousand springs!
Few are thy years, and yet this year to thy heart comes grief.
Gentle to me in its stroke that breath of severance brings
Down from thy boughs above, to my heart in the mould — one leaf!

XXVIII

Thou at my heart set safe, O Beloved, and I at thy feet!
Grant me this lowest place: then take from me
All that thou hast of need, — convert into life and heat
These ghosts of a day now gone, that Love sets free!

XXIX

Take, though nothing remains to give that is new! This mould,
Bearing the taint of age, lies dark and sodden as mud;
Yet once in a former time, it wore the colour of gold, —
And red in the loud wind's rage these drippings of autumn's blood.

. . . . . .
XXX

What pale hand is this that touches my brow,
Coming so late to loose the bars of my cage?
" Back from life in the past, I bring to thee now
Peace, and the light thereafter — the gift of age.

XXXI

" Life, once thine, comes now. when the fever's still,
Back on the flow of Time: so down to the stream,
Not as Narcissus, stoop and attain thy fill;
Look, and see how fair of face was the dream! "

XXXII

Here is to mark where the print of a foot hath been;
So, on my heart, was set the seal of thy worth.
Blessed, indeed, are the eyes in the things they have seen!
Can I, Beloved, forget how the feet of a god touched earth?