They t.i.tter like school-children; they arouse Their comrades, who exclaim: "He is very sage."
Look how the moon is staring through that cloud, Laying and lifting idle streaks of light.
O hark! was that the monstrous wind, so loud And sudden, prowling always through the night?
Let down the shaking curtain. They are queer, Those foreigners. They and we live so near.
V
Come, come to bed. The shadows move about, And some one seems to overhear our talk.
The fire is low; the candles flicker out; The ghosts of former tenants want to walk.
Already they are shuffling through the gloom.
I felt an old man touch my shoulder-blade; Once he was married here; they love this room, He and his woman and the child they made.
Dead, dead, they are, yet some familiar sound, Creeping along the brink of happy life, Revives their memory from under ground-- The farmer and his troublesome old wife.
Let us be going: as we climb the stairs, They"ll sit down in our warm half-empty chairs.
VI
Morning! Wake up! Awaken! All the boughs Are rippling on the air across the green.
The youngest birds are singing to the house.
Blood of the world!--and is the country clean?
Disturb the precinct. Cool it with a shout.
Sing as you trundle down to light the fire.
Turn the enc.u.mbering shadows tumbling out.
And fill the chambers with a new desire.
Life is no good, unless the morning brings White happiness and quick delight of day.
These half-inanimate domestic things Must all be useful, or must go away.
Coffee, be fragrant. Porridge in my plate, Increase the vigour to fulfil my fate.
VII
The fresh air moves like water round a boat.
The white clouds wander. Let us wander too.
The whining, wavering plover flap and float.
That crow is flying after that cuckoo.
Look! Look!... They"re gone. What are the great trees calling?
Just come a little farther, by that edge Of green, to where the stormy ploughland, falling Wave upon wave, is lapping to the hedge.
Oh, what a lovely bank! Give me your hand.
Lie down and press your heart against the ground.
Let us both listen till we understand, Each through the other, every natural sound....
I can"t hear anything to-day, can you, But, far and near: "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"?
VIII
The everlasting gra.s.s--how bright, how cool!
The day has gone too suddenly, too soon.
There"s something white and shiny in that pool-- Throw in a stone, and you will hit the moon.
Listen, the church-bell ringing! Do not say We must go back to-morrow to our work.
We"ll tell them we are dead: we died to-day.
We"re lazy. We"re too happy. We will shirk.
We"re cows. We"re kettles. We"ll be anything Except the manikins of time and fear.
We"ll start away to-morrow wandering, And n.o.body will notice in a year....
Now the great sun is slipping under ground.
Grip firmly!--How the earth is whirling round!
IX
Be staid; be careful; and be not too free.
Temptation to enjoy your liberty May rise against you, break into a crime, And smash the habit of employing Time.
It serves no purpose that the careful clock Mark the appointment, the officious train Hurry to keep it, if the minutes mock Loud in your ear: "Late. Late. Late. Late again."
Week-end is very well on Sat.u.r.day: On Monday it"s a different affair-- A little episode, a trivial stay In some oblivious spot somehow, somewhere.
On Sunday night we hardly laugh or speak: Week-end begins to merge itself in Week.
X
Pack up the house, and close the creaking door.
The fields are dull this morning in the rain.
It"s difficult to leave that homely floor.
Wave a light hand; we will return again.
(What was that bird?) Good-bye, ecstatic tree, Floating, bursting, and breathing on the air.
The lonely farm is wondering that we Can leave. How every window seems to stare!
That bag is heavy. Share it for a bit.
You like that gentle swashing of the ground As we tread?...
It is over. Now we sit Reading the morning paper in the sound Of the debilitating heavy train.
London again, again. London again.
THE BIRD AT DAWN
What I saw was just one eye In the dawn as I was going: A bird can carry all the sky In that little b.u.t.ton glowing.
Never in my life I went So deep into the firmament.
He was standing on a tree, All in blossom overflowing; And he purposely looked hard at me, At first, as if to question merrily: "Where are you going?"
But next some far more serious thing to say: I could not answer, could not look away.
Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye: Little mirror of all sky!-- And then the after-song another tree Held, and sent radiating back on me.
If no man had invented human word, And a bird-song had been The only way to utter what we mean, What would we men have heard, What understood, what seen, Between the trills and pauses, in between The singing and the silence of a bird?