Classic Poem

III

There's just a bit of twilight yet,
A glossy gray that floats the sea
From yonder, where the daylight set,
To me.

All else is violet growing dark.
Southward, a sorrow breaks the sky.
The tide in languor of its mark
Is high.

And old night thickens on the strand.
There is no motion but the wave's,
Along the leagues of listening sand
That raves.

And nothing now. The lighthouse lit.
If ships there be, they're far from coast.
All's safe. But something infinite
Is lost.

One spot where every day declines
In a last red ray
From the circle poised on a hill of pines;

One knoll, where an elm's twist-branches play
With the air, elate;
And below, our bench of a battered gray:

In summer, 't was bright — when the sun sets late,
Too late for regret!
And the winds lie down somewhere to wait

While daylight goes and gray streaks fret
The heaven's blues
And round the mid-sky night's arms are met.

But we went to-day and the long sinews
Of our elm were lame
With wind that ran in the day's lost clues.

Early the sun set, vague and tame.
Thro' gathering mists
The rain fell chiding us why we came.

A drizzle fills the autumn day.
The sun will never here come back,
And weeds and foliage in decay
Lie draggled in the cart-wheel's track.

From blackened woods along the plain
A vapour passes out, a sound
Of boughs grown weak thro' nights of rain,
That sink and shatter on the ground.

The meadow turf is all a swamp,
There's nothing left of summer. Come.
The air turns dark and deadly damp.
Come, for it's very far to home.

The year for you and me
Is nearly done.
The leaves there, two or three,
Are brown.
Not a bird sings.
It is time to think of other things.

Your secret was my hope,
Your deeper name;
And you perhaps did ope
The same. —
Only the word
For being spoke yet was not heard.

And as a leaf that knows
It cannot meet
Another leaf that grows
So sweet,
Hearing it call,
Springs in the autumn wind, to fall:

So did I hoping doubt,
Till thro' the dark
Falling away, went out
The spark, —
Ever to be
A star gone down below the sea.

Not that, if you had known at all,
You would have done what now you do.
God knows, no blame shall ever fall
Of mine on you.
I only marvel that it all be true.

They say that love's a mustard seed
Upon the acres of the heart;
It spreads from one part like a weed
To another part.
Yet Spring is single and the days depart.

I know not why, but so it is!
That pain is such a simple thing.
Here to your hand I bring my kiss,
And yet nothing
Can tell you nearly what it is I bring.

And why? — It's hard to cipher Fates
And Distances, as yours from me.
Not science even separates
So fixedly; —
And then we tantalize our destiny!

Yes, marvel how the chances cross
And weave these spider-webs of wire.
Men live who say there's gain in loss!
And yet Desire
Revives like ferns on a November fire.

It comes to only a memory.
We have too many memories,
And somehow I believe we die
Of things like these,
Loving what was not, might not be, nor is.

Like a pearl dropped in red dark wine,
Your pale face sank within my heart,
Not to be mine, yet always mine.

Your eyes, like flowers from apart
Their frail and shaded gates of dream,
Looked all a meadow's light astart

With sunrise, and your smile did seem
As when below a letting rain
The water-drops with sunset gleam.

I thought my vision was not vain;
I felt my cramped heart stir and move
Which now is pressed with little pain.

I dreamed the dream one wonders of, —
Your face of pearl, so pale and wise.
I saw, and murmured " Life is Love. "

The dust of folly filled my eyes.
I sang, and opened in your name
Crocuses yellow with moonrise.

I played with shadows at their game;
The meadow thought my song was wind.
I called the sunrise up: it came.

Sweet sun-warmed grasses did I bind
In fancies of your hair. My song
Was you, and you were all my mind. —

The charm, the splendour, and the wrong
Will drive you thro' the earth, to try
Of you and pleasure which is strong, —

While I remember. Cry on cry
My autumn's gone. A horrid blast
Blows out my sunset from the sky.

Nothing is left and all is past;
Rain settles like a quiet air.
And as a pearl in red wine cast
Glows like a drop of moonlight there,
Your face possesses my despair.

Receive my love; I ask no more.
Receive, I have no more to give.
The heart and spirit of me bore
All of this little gift. Receive!

I fancied as in dream I passed
My arms afraid with care and strove
About you, to have gleaned at last
Some late and stilly wished-for love, —

No more the wild wide flames that leap
Out of a moment down our years,
To smoulder in endangering sleep,
To glitter under tender tears, —

But something dear and gradual
Within your slowly opening soul:
Your nearly love, your nearly all
Which comes with years to be the very whole.

You would give otherwise and more,
Give much more and forget you gave, —
As over-seas in summer pour
The wide blue swinging breadths of wave.

Yes, and your vision of desire
Is richer than the sunrise and
Profounder than the sea and higher
Than the last light these heavens command.

You suffer thirst, and waiting brood
Impatiently one day to strain
From out this life of mood and food
The stuffs of ecstasy and pain: —

Till squandering in royal waste
The passion of your youth upon
Some pitiable heart, you taste
The wines and fever of oblivion!

I know. — Your dream is mine, that was.
And quickly far within your eyes
All of my life began to pass
And wander out in seas and skies.

But you, whom all my life adored,
While I go following in your way,
Can not so much as speak the word; —
For there be lies no tongue can say.

How strange it is, the point we lack
Just to possess the spirit's own,
And failing this, to tremble back
Among unfinished things alone!

Pass by, dear heart, — and take from me
This charm for which a diver dove
Of old down the unruined sea, —
And taking mine, give to another thy love.