"When Augustus Caesar legislated against the unmarried citizens of Rome, he declared them to be, in some sort, slayers of the people."Ah no, not these! These, who were childless, are not they who gave So many dead unto the journeying wave, The helpless nurslings of the cradling seas; Not they who doomed by infallible decrees Unnumbered man to the innumerable grave.But those who slay Are fathers.Theirs are armies.Death is theirs, The death of innocences and despairs; The dying of the golden and the grey.The sentence, when these speak it, has no Nay.And she who slays is she who bears, who bears.
THE MODERN MOTHER
Oh what a kiss With filial passion overcharged is this! To this misgiving breast The child runs, as a child ne'er ran to rest Upon the light heart and the unoppressed.
Unhoped, unsought! A little tenderness, this mother thought The utmost of her meed She looked for gratitude; content indeed With thus much that her nine years' love had bought.
Nay, even with less.This mother, giver of life, death, peace, distress, Desired ah! not so much Thanks as forgiveness; and the passing touch Expected, and the slight, the brief caress.
Oh filial light Strong in these childish eyes, these new, these bright Intelligible stars! Their rays Are near the constant earth, guides in the maze, Natural, true, keen in this dusk of days.
WEST WIND IN WINTER
Another day awakes.And who - Changing the world--is this? He comes at whiles, the Winter through, West Wind! I would not miss His sudden tryst: the long, the new Surprises of his kiss.
Vigilant, I make haste to close With him who comes my way.I go to meet him as he goes; I know his note, his lay, His colour and his morning rose; And I confess his day.
My window waits; at dawn I hark His call; at morn I meet His haste around the tossing park And down the softened street; The gentler light is his; the dark, The grey--he turns it sweet.
So too, so too, do I confess My poet when he sings.He rushes on my mortal guess With his immortal things.I feel, I know him.On I press - He finds me 'twixt his wings.
NOVEMBER BLUE
The colour of the electric lights has a strange effect in giving a complementary tint to the air in the early evening.--ESSAY ON LONDON.
O, Heavenly colour! London town Has blurred it from her skies; And hooded in an earthly brown, Unheaven'd the city lies.No longer standard- like this hue Above the broad road flies; Nor does the narrow street the blue Wear, slender pennon-wise.
But when the gold and silver lamps Colour the London dew, And, misted by the winter damps, The shops shine bright anew - Blue comes to earth, it walks the street, It dyes the wide air through; A mimic sky about their feet, The throng go crowned with blue.
CHIMES
Brief, on a flying night, From the shaken tower, A flock of bells take flight, And go with the hour.
Like birds from the cote to the gales, Abrupt--O hark! A fleet of bells set sails, And go to the dark.
Sudden the cold airs swing.Alone, aloud, A verse of bells takes wing And flies with the cloud.
UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN
Given, not lent, And not withdrawn--once sent - This Infant of mankind, this One, Is still the little welcome Son.
New every year, New-born and newly dear, He comes with tidings and a song, The ages long, the ages long.
Even as the cold Keen winter grows not old; As childhood is so fresh, foreseen, And spring in the familiar green;Sudden as sweet Come the expected feet.All joy is young, and new all art, And He, too, Whom we have by heart.
A DEAD HARVEST [IN KENSINGTON GARDENS]
Along the graceless grass of town They rake the rows of red and brown, Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay, Delicate, neither gold nor grey, Raked long ago and far away.
A narrow silence in the park; Between the lights a narrow dark.One street rolls on the north, and one, Muffled, upon the south doth run.Amid the mist the work is done.
A futile crop; for it the fire Smoulders, and, for a stack, a pyre.So go the town's lives on the breeze, Even as the sheddings of the trees; Bosom nor barn is filled with these.
THE TWO POETS
Whose is the speech That moves the voices of this lonely beech? Out of the long West did this wild wind come - Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb, Ready and dumb, until The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill.
Two memories, Two powers, two promises, two silences Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves Articulate.This sudden hour retrieves The purpose of the past, Separate, apart--embraced, embraced at last.
"Whose is the word? Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?" "Thine earth was solitary; yet I found thee!" "Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee, Thou visitant divine." "O thou my Voice, the word was thine." "Was thine."
A POET'S WIFE
I saw a tract of ocean locked in-land Within a field's embrace - The very sea! Afar it fled the strand And gave the seasons chase, And met the night alone, the tempest spanned, Saw sunrise face to face.
O Poet, more than ocean, lonelier! In inaccessible rest And storm remote, thou, sea of thoughts, dost stir, Scattered through east to west, - Now, while thou closest with the kiss of her Who locks thee to her breast.
VENERATION OF IMAGES
Thou man, first-comer, whose wide arms entreat, Gather, clasp, welcome, bind, Lack, or remember! whose warm pulses beat With love of thine own kind;Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea, Unshrined on this high-way, O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee, Thou rood of every day!
AT NIGHT
Home, home from the horizon far and clear, Hither the soft wings sweep; Flocks of the memories of the day draw near The dovecote doors of sleep.
O which are they that come through sweetest light Of all these homing birds? Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight? Your words to me, your words!
