But presently the evening shadows in, Heralded by the night-jar"s solitary din And the quick bat"s squeak among the trees; --Who sudden rises, darting across the air To weave her filmy web in the Sun"s bright hair That slowly sinks dejected on his knees....
Now is he vanished: the bewildered skies Flame out a desperate and last surmise; Then yield to Night, their sudden conqueror.
From pole to pole the shadow of the world Creeps over heaven, till itself is lit By the very many stars that wake in it: Sleep, like a messenger of great import, Lays quiet and compelling hands athwart The easy idlenesses of my mind.
--There is a breeze above me, and around: There is a fire before me, and behind: But Sleep doth hold me, and I hear no sound.
In the far West the clouds are mustering, Without hurry, noise, or bl.u.s.tering: And soon as Body"s nightly Sentinel Himself doth nod, I open furtive eyes....
With darkling hook the Farmer of the Skies Goes reaping stars: they flicker, one by one, Nodding a little; tumble,--and are gone.
POETS, PAINTERS, PUDDINGS
Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Make up the World as it ought to be.
Poets make faces And sudden grimaces: They twit you, and spit you On words: then admit you To heaven or h.e.l.l By the tales that they tell.
Painters are gay As young rabbits in May: They buy jolly mugs, Bowls, pictures, and jugs: The things round their necks Are lively with checks, (For they like something red As a frame for the head): Or they"ll curse you with oaths, That tear holes in your clothes.
(With nothing to mend them You"d best not offend them.)
Puddings should be Full of currants, for me: Boiled in a pail, Tied in the tail Of an old bleached shirt: So hot that they hurt, So huge that they last From the dim, distant past Until the crack o" doom Lift the roof off the room.
Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Crown the day as it crowned should be.
WILLIAM KERR
IN MEMORIAM D. O. M.
Chestnut candles are lit again For the dead that died in spring: Dead lovers walk the orchard ways, And the dead cuckoos sing.
Is it they who live and we who are dead?
Hardly the springtime knows For which today the cuckoo calls, And the white blossom blows.
Listen and hear the happy wind Whisper and lightly pa.s.s: "Your love is sweet as hawthorn is, Your hope green as the gra.s.s.
"The hawthorn"s faint and quickly gone, The gra.s.s in autumn dies; Put by your life, and see the spring With everlasting eyes."
PAST AND PRESENT
Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon Hardly remembers any summer gone: And never again the Kentish elms shall see Mynn, or Fuller Pilch, or Colin Blythe.
--Nor shall I see them, unless perhaps a ghost Watching the elder ghosts beyond the moon.
But here in common sunshine I have seen George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial, His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls; Waddington"s fury and the patience of Dipper; And twenty easy artful overs of Rhodes, So many stanzas of the Faerie Queen.
THE AUDIT
Mere living wears the most of life away: Even the lilies take thought for many things, For frost in April and for drought in May, And from no careless heart the skylark sings.
Those cheap utilities of rain and sun Describe the foolish circle of our years, Until death takes us, doing all undone, And there"s an end at last to hopes and fears.
Though song be hollow and no dreams come true, Still songs and dreams are better than the truth: But there"s so much to get, so much to do, Mary must drudge like Martha, dainty Ruth
Forget the morning music in the corn, And Rachel grudge when Leah"s boys are born.
THE APPLE TREE
Secret and wise as nature, like the wind Melancholy or light-hearted without reason, And like the waxing or the waning moon Ever pale and lovely: you are like these Because you are free and live by your own law; While I, desiring life and half alive, Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder on.
Your beauty is your life and my content, And I will liken you to an apple-tree, Mary and Margaret playing under the branches, And everywhere soft shadows like your eyes, And scattered blossom like your little smiles.
HER NEW-YEAR POSY
When I seek the world through For images of you, Though apple-blossom is glad And the lily stately-sad, Gilliflowers kind of breath, Rosemary true till death; Though the wind can stir the gra.s.s To memories as you pa.s.s.
And the soft-singing streams Are music like your dreams; Though constant stars embrace The quiet of your face, Your smile lights up sunrise, And evening"s in your eyes-- Each so shadows its part, All cannot show your heart; And weighing the beauty of earth I see it so little worth, When reckoned beside you, That I hold heaven for true --But all my heaven is you.
COUNTING SHEEP
Half-awake I walked A dimly-seen sweet hawthorn lane Until sleep came; I lingered at a gate and talked A little with a lonely lamb.
He told me of the great still night, Of calm starlight, And of the lady moon, who"d stoop For a kiss sometimes; Of gra.s.s as soft as sleep, of rhymes The tired flowers sang: The ageless April tales Of how, when sheep grew old, As their faith told, They went without a pang To far green fields, where fall Perpetual streams that call To deathless nightingales.
And then I saw, hard by, A shepherd lad with shining eyes, And round him gathered one by one Countless sheep, snow-white; More and more they crowded With tender cries, Till all the field was full Of voices and of coming sheep.
Countless they came, and I Watched, until deep As dream-fields lie I was asleep.
THE TREES AT NIGHT
Under vague silver moonlight The trees are lovely and ghostly, In the pale blue of the night There are few stars to see.