The eyelids meet. He'll catch a little nap.
The grizzled, crew-cut head drops to his chest.
It shakes above the briefcase on his lap.
Close voices breathe, "Poor sweet, he did his best."

"Poor sweet, poor sweet," the bird-hushed glades repeat,
Through which in quiet pomp his litter goes,
Carried by native girls with naked feet.
A sighing stream concurs in his repose.

Could he but think, he might recall to mind
The righteous mutiny or sudden gale
That beached him here; the dear ones left behind . . .

there’s only ever one argument: his,
bawling out whoever punctuates
the brief intervals his cussing
| interrupts, something unheard, reason perhaps.

What you never get is silence,
always some groan on the horizon
out on the borders of attention
where would be quiet if they let it.

Always some conversation far away,
foreign, banal. dramatic, translated
it means my wife’s name is Judit.
I am an engineer from Spidertown.

What to reply? Your Majesty,
my name is Smith. All lies anyway,

IN the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
   And the young fair maidens
   Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
   Her more lovely music
   Broods and dies--

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
   And the low green meadows
   Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,

One moment alone in the garden,
Under the August skies;
The moon had gone but the stars shone on, -
Shone like your beautiful eyes.
Away from the glitter and gaslight,
Alone in the garden there,
While the mirth of the throng, in laugh and song,
Floated out on the air.

You looked down through the starlight,
And I looked up at you;
And a feeling came that I could not name, -
Something starnge and new.
Friends of a few weeks only, -
Why should it give me pain
To know you would go in the morrow,

Out of the mid-wood's twilight
Into the meadow's dawn,
Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,
Flashes my Faun!

He skips through the copses singing,
And his shadow dances along,
And I know not which I should follow,
Shadow or song!

O Hunter, snare me his shadow!
O Nightingale, catch me his strain!
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain!

1

In Salem dwelt a glorious King,
Raised from a shepherd's lowly state;
That did His praises like an angel sing
Who did the World create.
By many great and bloody wars
He was advanced unto Thrones
But more delighted in the stars
Than in the splendour of his precious stones;
Nor gold nor silver did his eye regard
The Works of God were his sublime reward,


2

A warlike champion he had been,
And many feats of chivalry
Had done: in kingly courts his eye had seen
A vast variety

O, MANDRAGORA, many sing in praise
Of life, and death, and immortality,--
Of passion, that goes famished all her days,--
Of Faith, or fantasy;
Thou, all unpraised, unsung, I make this rhyme to thee.

The womby underworlds thy roots enclose,
In human shape, sprung from abhorrent seed;
But when through crumbling roof the daylight shows,
And thou my breast hast freed
Thou growest in the field as any flower or weed.

At many a cross-road bare thy leaves protrude,
Upon the brow of lonely, moon-blanched heath,

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.

The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!

You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,

You say, but with no touch of scorn,
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,
You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.
I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true:
Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,