Collected Poems: Volume Two. Alfred Noyes
was the cage-door, idly swinging;
April touched me and whispered "Come."
Out and away to the great deep winging,
Sister, I flashed to thee over the foam,
Out to the sea of Eternity, singing
"Mother, thy child comes home."
* * * *
Ah, but how shall we welcome May
Here where the wing of song droops low,
Here by the last green swinging spray
Brushed by the sea-bird's wings of snow,
We that gazed on his glorious way
Out where the great winds blow?
Here upon earth—"can'st thou, too, die, Lover of life and lover of mine?" April, conquering earth and sky Whispers, her trembling lashes shine: "Wings of the sea, good-bye, good-bye, Down to the dim sea-line."
ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS THOMPSON
I
How grandly glow the bays
Purpureally enwound
With those rich thorns, the brows
How infinitely crowned
That now thro' Death's dark house
Have passed with royal gaze:
Purpureally enwound
How grandly glow the bays.
II
Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet,
Pulsing with three-fold pain,
Where the lark fails of flight
Soared the celestial strain;
Beyond the sapphire height
Flew the gold-wingèd feet,
Beautiful, pierced with pain,
Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet;
III
And where Is not and Is Are wed in one sweet Name, And the world's rootless vine With dew of stars a-flame Laughs, from those deep divine Impossibilities, Our reason all to shame— This cannot be, but is;
IV
Into the Vast, the Deep
Beyond all mortal sight,
The Nothingness that conceived
The worlds of day and night, The Nothingness that heaved
Pure sides in virgin sleep,
Brought out of Darkness, light;
And man from out the Deep.
V
Into that Mystery
Let not thine hand be thrust:
Nothingness is a world
Thy science well may trust …
But lo, a leaf unfurled,
Nay, a cry mocking thee
From the first grain of dust—
I am, yet cannot be!
VI
Adventuring un-afraid
Into that last deep shrine,
Must not the child-heart see
Its deepest symbol shine,
The world's Birth-mystery,
Whereto the suns are shade?
Lo, the white breast divine—
The holy Mother-maid!
VII
How miss that Sacrifice,
That cross of Yea and Nay,
That paradox of heaven
Whose palms point either way,
Through each a nail being driven
That the arms out-span the skies
And our earth-dust this day
Out-sweeten Paradise.
VIII
We part the seamless robe,
Our wisdom would divide
The raiment of the King,
Our spear is in His side,
Even while the angels sing
Around our perishing globe,
And Death re-knits in pride
The seamless purple robe.
* * * *
IX
How grandly glow the bays Purpureally enwound With those rich thorns, the brows How infinitely crowned That now thro' Death's dark house Have passed with royal gaze: Purpureally enwound How grandly glow the bays.
IN MEMORY OF MEREDITH
I
High on the mountains, who stands proudly, clad with the light of May,
Rich as the dawn, deep-hearted as night, diamond-bright as day,
Who, while the slopes of the beautiful valley throb with our muffled tread
Who, with the hill-flowers wound in her tresses, welcomes our deathless dead?
II
Is it not she whom he sought so long thro' the high lawns dewy and sweet,
Up thro' the crags and the glittering snows faint-flushed with her rosy feet, Is it not she—the queen of our night—crowned by the unseen sun,
Artemis, she that can see the light, when light upon earth is none?
III
Huntress, queen of the dark of the world (no darker at night than noon)
Beauty immortal and undefiled, the Eternal sun's white moon,
Only by thee and thy silver shafts for a flash can our hearts discern,
Pierced to the quick, the love, the love that still thro' the dark doth yearn.
IV
What to his soul were the hill-flowers, what the gold at the break of day
Shot thro' the red-stemmed firs to the lake where the swimmer clove his way,
What were the quivering harmonies showered from the heaven-tossed heart of the lark,
Artemis, Huntress, what were these but thy keen shafts cleaving the dark?
V
Frost of the hedge-row, flash of the jasmine, sparkle of dew on the leaf,
Seas lit wide by the summer lightning, shafts from thy diamond sheaf,
Deeply they pierced him, deeply he loved thee, now has he found thy soul,
Artemis, thine, in this bridal peal, where we hear but the death-bell toll.
THE TESTIMONY OF ART