Collected Poems: Volume Two. Alfred Noyes
quaking fen.
He learnt his path (and treads it undefiled)
When, as a little child,
He bent his head with long and loving looks
O'er earthly picture-books.
His earthly love nestles against his side,
His young celestial guide.
GORSE
Between my face and the warm blue sky
The crisp white clouds go sailing by,
And the only sound is the sound of your breathing,
The song of a bird and the sea's long sigh.
Here, on the downs, as a tale re-told
The sprays of the gorse are a-blaze with gold,
As of old, on the sea-washed hills of my boyhood,
Breathing the same sweet scent as of old.
Under a ragged golden spray
The great sea sparkles far away,
Beautiful, bright, as my heart remembers
Many a dazzle of waves in May.
Long ago as I watched them shine
Under the boughs of fir and pine,
Here I watch them to-day and wonder,
Here, with my love's hand warm in mine.
The soft wings pass that we used to chase,
Dreams that I dreamed had left not a trace,
The same, the same, with the bars of crimson
The green-veined white, with its floating grace,
The same to the least bright fleck on their wings!
And I close my eyes, and a lost bird sings,
And a far sea sighs, and the old sweet fragrance
Wraps me round with the dear dead springs,
Wraps me round with the springs to be
When lovers that think not of you or me
Laugh, but our eyes will be closed in darkness,
Closed to the sky and the gorse and the sea,
And the same great glory of ragged gold
Once more, once more, as a tale re-told
Shall whisper their hearts with the same sweet fragrance
And their warm hands cling, as of old, as of old.
Dead and un-born, the same blue skies
Cover us! Love, as I read your eyes,
Do I not know whose love enfolds us,
As we fold the past in our memories,
Past, present, future, the old and the new?
From the depths of the grave a cry breaks through
And trembles, a sky-lark blind in the azure,
The depths of the all-enfolding blue.
O, resurrection of folded years
Deep in our hearts, with your smiles and tears,
Dead and un-born shall not He remember
Who folds our cry in His heart, and hears.
FOR THE EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY OF GEORGE MEREDITH
A health, a ringing health, unto the king
Of all our hearts to-day! But what proud song
Should follow on the thought, nor do him wrong?
Except the sea were harp, each mirthful string
The lovely lightning of the nights of Spring,
And Dawn the lonely listener, glad and grave
With colours of the sea-shell and the wave
In brightening eye and cheek, there is none to sing!
Drink to him, as men upon an Alpine peak
Brim one immortal cup of crimson wine,
And into it drop one pure cold crust of snow,
Then hold it up, too rapturously to speak
And drink—to the mountains, line on glittering line,
Surging away into the sunset-glow.
IN MEMORY OF SWINBURNE
I
April from shore to shore, from sea to sea,
April in heaven and on the springing spray
Buoyant with birds that sing to welcome May
And April in those eyes that mourn for thee:
"This is my singing month; my hawthorn tree
Burgeons once more," we seemed to hear thee say,
"This is my singing month: my fingers stray
Over the lute. What shall the music be?"
And April answered with too great a song
For mortal lips to sing or hearts to hear,
Heard only of that high invisible throng
For whom thy song makes April all the year!
"My singing month, what bringest thou?" Her breath
Swooned with all music, and she answered—"Death."
II
Ah, but on earth—"can'st thou, too, die,"
Low she whispers, "lover of mine?"
April, queen over earth and sky
Whispers, her trembling lashes shine:
"Wings of the sea, good-bye, good-bye,
Down to the dim sea-line."
Home to the heart of thine old-world lover,
Home to thy "fair green-girdled" sea!
There shall thy soul with the sea-birds hover,
Free of the deep as their wings are free;
Free, for the grave-flowers only cover
This, the dark cage of thee.
Thee, the storm-bird, nightingale-souled,
Brother of Sappho, the seas reclaim!
Age upon age have the great waves rolled
Mad with her music, exultant, aflame;
Thee, thee too, shall their glory enfold,
Lit with thy snow-winged fame.
Back, thro' the years, fleets the sea-bird's wing:
Sappho, of old time, once—ah, hark! So did he love her of old and sing! Listen, he flies to her, back thro' the dark! Sappho, of old time, once. … Yea, Spring Calls him home to her, hark!
Sappho, long since, in the years far sped, Sappho, I loved thee! Did I not seem Fosterling only of earth? I have fled, Fled to thee, sister. Time is a dream! Shelley is here with us! Death lies dead! Ah, how the bright waves gleam.
Wide