Was _that_ the landmark? What,--the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!)Was that my point of turning?--I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone or ensigned citadel.
But lo! the path is missed, I must go back, And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring Which once I stained, which since may have grown black.
Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening, That the same goal is still on the same track.
A DARK DAY
The gloom that breathes upon me with these airs Is like the drops which strike the traveller's brow Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears.
Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares, Or hath but memory of the day whose plough Sowed hunger once,-- the night at length when thou, 0 prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers?
How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth, Along the hedgerows of this journey shed, Lie by Time's grace till night and sleep may soothe!
Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth, Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed.
AUTUMN IDLENESS
This sunlight shames November where he grieves In dead red leaves, and will not let him shun The day, though bough with bough be over-run.
But with a blessing every glade receives High salutation; while from hillock-eaves The deer gaze calling, dappled white and dun, As if, being foresters of old, the sun Had marked them with the shade of forest-leaves.
Here dawn to-day unveiled her magic glass;
Here noon now gives the thirst and takes the dew;Till eve bring rest when other good things pass.
And here the lost hours the lost hours renew While I still lead my shadow o'er the grass, Nor know, for longing, that which I should do.
THE HILL SUMMIT
This feast-day of the sun, his altar there In the broad west has blazed for vesper-song;And I have loitered in the vale too long And gaze now a belated worshipper.
Yet may I not forget that I was 'ware, So journeying, of his face at intervals Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls,--A fiery bush with coruscating hair.
And now that I have climbed and won this height, I must tread downward through the sloping shade And travel the bewildered tracks till night.
Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed And see the gold air and the silver fade And the last bird fly into the last light.
THE CHOICE
IEat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Surely the earth, that s wise being very old, Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold Thy sultry hair up from my face that IMay pour for thee this yellow wine, brim-high, Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours toil'd, Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.
Now kiss, and think that there are really those, My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way Through many days they toil; then comes a day They die not,--never having lived,--but cease;And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.
II Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?
Is not the day which God's word promiseth To come man knows not when? In yonder sky, Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can IOr thou assure him of his goal? God's breath Even at the moment haply quickeneth The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here.
And dost thou prate of all that man shall do?
Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?
Will _his_ strength slay _thy_ worm in Hell? Go to:
Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.
Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore, Thou say'st: 'Man's measured path is all gone o'er:
Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Man clomb* until he touched the truth; and I, Even I, am he whom it was destined for.'
How should this be? Art thou then so much more Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap thereby?
Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the grey line be, And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,--Still, leagues beyond those leagues there is more sea.
*[sic]
OLD AND NEW ART
Give honour unto Luke Evangelist;
For he it was (the aged legends say)
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.
Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist Of devious symbols: but soon having wist How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day Are symbols also in some deeper way, She looked through these to God and was God's priest.
And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, And she sought talismans, and turned in vain To soulless self-reflections of man's skill, Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still Kneel in the latter grass to pray again, Ere the night cometh and she may not work.
