The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke

   Song of a tribe of the ancient Egyptians

        (The Priests within the Temple)
   She was wrinkled and huge and hideous?  She was our Mother.
   She was lustful and lewd? — but a God; we had none other.
   In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade;
   We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.

        (The People without)
             She sent us pain,
              And we bowed before Her;
             She smiled again
              And bade us adore Her.
             She solaced our woe
              And soothed our sighing;
             And what shall we do
              Now God is dying?

        (The Priests within)
   She was hungry and ate our children; — how should we stay Her?
   She took our young men and our maidens; — ours to obey Her.
   We were loathed and mocked and reviled of all nations; that was our pride.
   She fed us, protected us, loved us, and killed us; now She has died.

        (The People without)
             She was so strong;
              But death is stronger.
             She ruled us long;
              But Time is longer.
             She solaced our woe
              And soothed our sighing;
             And what shall we do
              Now God is dying?

        (Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set,
        they sing this beneath the trees.)

   What light of unremembered skies
   Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
   Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
   A certain odour on the wind,
   Thy hidden face beyond the west,
   These things have called us; on a quest
   Older than any road we trod,
   More endless than desire. . . .
                                    Far God,
   Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
   The soul with longing for dim hills
   And faint horizons!  For there come
   Grey moments of the antient dumb
   Sickness of travel, when no song
   Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
   And one remembers. . . .
                             Ah! the beat
   Of weary unreturning feet,
   And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
   The fires we left are always burning
   On the old shrines of home.  Our kin
   Have built them temples, and therein
   Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell
   In little houses lovable,
   Being happy (we remember how!)
   And peaceful even to death. . . .
                                      O Thou,
   God of all long desirous roaming,
   Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,
   And crying after lost desire.
   Hearten us onward! as with fire
   Consuming dreams of other bliss.
   The best Thou givest, giving this
   Sufficient thing — to travel still
   Over the plain, beyond the hill,
   Unhesitating through the shade,
   Amid the silence unafraid,
   Till, at some sudden turn, one sees
   Against the black and muttering trees
   Thine altar, wonderfully white,
   Among the Forests of the Night.

        (Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)

   Come away!  Come away!
   Ye are sober and dull through the common day,
   But now it is night!
   It is shameful night, and God is asleep!
   (Have you not felt the quick fires that creep
   Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,
   And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).
       The house is dumb;
   The night calls out to you.        Come, ah, come!
   Down the dim stairs, through the creaking door,
   Naked, crawling on hands and feet
   — It is meet! it is meet!
   Ye are men no longer, but less and more,
   Beast and God. . . .  Down the lampless street,
   By little black ways, and secret places,
   In the darkness and mire,
   Faint laughter around, and evil faces
   By the star-glint seen — ah! follow with us!
   For the darkness whispers a blind desire,
   And the fingers of night are amorous.
   Keep close as we speed,
   Though mad whispers woo you, and hot hands cling,
   And the touch and the smell of bare flesh sting,
   Soft flank by your flank, and side brushing side —
   TO-NIGHT never heed!
   Unswerving and silent follow with me,
   Till the city ends sheer,
   And the crook'd lanes open wide,
   Out of the voices of night,
   Beyond lust and fear,
   To the level waters of moonlight,
   To the level waters, quiet and clear,
   To the black unresting plains of the calling sea.

   Because God put His adamantine fate
    Between my sullen heart and its desire,
   I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,
    Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.
   Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,
    But Love was as a flame about my feet;
    Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat
   Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry —

   All the great courts were quiet in the sun,
    And full of vacant echoes:  moss had grown
   Over the glassy pavement, and begun
    To creep within the dusty council-halls.
   An idle wind blew round an empty throne
    And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.

   Before thy shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper,
    Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies,
   Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh.

   Ah, goddess, on thy throne of tears and faint low sighs,
    Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err,
   And empty hearts grown tired of the world's vanities.

   How fair this cool deep silence to a wanderer
    Deaf with the roar of winds along the open skies!
   Sweet, after sting and bitter kiss of sea-water,

   The pale Lethean wine within thy chalices!
    I come before thee, I, too tired wanderer,
   To heed the horror of the shrine, the distant cries,

   And evil whispers in the gloom, or the swift whirr
    Of terrible wings — I, least of all thy votaries,
   With a faint hope to see the scented darkness stir,

   And, parting, frame within its quiet mysteries
    One face, with lips than autumn-lilies tenderer,
   And voice more sweet than the far plaint of viols is,

    Or the soft moan of any grey-eyed lute-player.

        (From the train between Bologna and Milan, second class.)

   Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat.
    Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar.
   We have been here for ever:  even yet
    A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more.
   The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet
    With a night's foetor.  There are two hours more;
   Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours yet.
   Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore. . . .

   One of them wakes, and spits, and sleeps again.
    The darkness shivers.  A wan light through the rain
   Strikes on our faces, drawn and white.  Somewhere
    A new day sprawls; and, inside, the foul air
   Is chill, and damp, and fouler than before. . . .
   Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore.

   Out of the nothingness of sleep,
    The slow dreams of Eternity,
   There was a thunder on the deep:
    I came, because you called to me.

   I broke the Night's primeval bars,
    I dared the old abysmal curse,
   And flashed through ranks of frightened stars
    Suddenly on the universe!

   The eternal silences were broken;
    Hell became Heaven as I passed. —
   What shall I give you as a token,
    A sign that we have met, at last?

   I'll break and forge the stars anew,
    Shatter the heavens with a song;
   Immortal in my love for you,
    Because I love you, very strong.

   Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,
    Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,
   I'll write upon the shrinking skies
    The scarlet splendour of your name,

   Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder
    Dies in her ultimate mad fire,
   And darkness falls, with scornful thunder,
    On dreams of men and men's desire.

   Then only in the empty spaces,
    Death, walking very silently,
   Shall fear the glory of our faces
    Through all the dark infinity.

   So, clothed about with perfect love,
    The eternal end shall find us one,
   Alone above the Night, above
    The dust of the dead gods, alone.

   Is it the hour?  We leave this resting-place
    Made fair by one another for a while.
   Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;
    The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.
   Ah! the long road! and you so far away!
   Oh, I'll remember! but . . . each crawling day
   Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile
    Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.

   . . . Do you think there's a far border town, somewhere,
    The desert's edge, last of the lands we know,
       Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,
    In which I'll find you waiting; and we'll go
   Together, hand in hand again, out there,
       Into the waste we know not, into the night?

   Some day I shall rise and leave my friends
   And seek you again through the world's far ends,
   You whom I found so fair
   (Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),
   My only god in the days that were.
   My eager feet shall find you again,
   Though the sullen years and the mark of pain
   Have changed you wholly; for I shall know
   (How could I forget having loved you so?),
   In the sad half-light of evening,
   The face that was all my sunrising.
   So then at the ends of the earth I'll stand
   And hold you fiercely by either hand,
   And seeing your age and ashen hair
   I'll curse the thing that once you were,
   Because it is changed and pale and old
   (Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!),
   And I loved you before you were old and wise,
   When the flame of youth was strong in your eyes,
   — And my heart is sick with memories.

   Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire
    Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
   Into the shade and loneliness and mire
    Of the last land!  There, waiting patiently,

   One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
    See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
   And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
    And tremble.  And I shall know that you have died,

   And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
    Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
   Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam —
    Most individual and bewildering ghost! —

   And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
   Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

   I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true.
    Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.
   On gods or fools the high risk falls — on you —
    The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.
   Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.
    Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.
   But — there are wanderers in the middle mist,
    Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell
   Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom:
    An old song's lady, a fool in fancy dress,
   Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom;
    For love of Love, or from heart's loneliness.
   Pleasure's not theirs, nor pain.  They doubt, and sigh,
    And do not love at all.  Of these am I.

   I think if you had loved me when I wanted;
    If I'd looked up one day, and seen your eyes,
   And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted,
    And your brown face, that's full of pity and wise,
   Flushed suddenly; the white godhead in new fear
    Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed;
   Most holy and far, if you'd come all too near,
    If earth had seen Earth's lordliest wild limbs tamed,
   Shaken, and trapped, and shivering, for MY touch —
    Myself should I have slain? or that foul you?
   But this the strange gods, who had given so much,
    To have seen and known you, this they might not do.
   One last shame's spared me, one black word's unspoken;
    And I'm alone; and you have not awoken.

   When the white flame in us is gone,
    And we that lost the world's delight
   Stiffen in darkness, left alone
    To crumble in our separate night;

   When your swift hair is quiet in death,
    And through the lips corruption thrust
   Has stilled the labour of my breath —
    When we are dust, when we are dust! —

   Not dead, not undesirous yet,
    Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
   We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
    Around the places where we died,

   And dance as dust before the sun,
    And light of foot, and unconfined,
   Hurry from road to road, and run
    About the errands of the wind.

   And every mote, on earth or air,
    Will speed and gleam, down later days,
   And like a secret pilgrim fare
    By eager and invisible ways,

   Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,
    Till, beyond thinking, out of view,
   One mote of all the dust that's I
    Shall meet one atom that was you.

   Then in some garden hushed from wind,
    Warm in a sunset's afterglow,
   The lovers in the flowers will find
    A sweet and strange unquiet grow

   Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
    So high a beauty in the air,
   And such a light, and such a quiring,
    And such a radiant ecstasy there,

   They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,
    Or out of earth, or in the height,
   Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,
    Or two that pass, in light, to light,

   Out of the garden, higher, higher. . . .
    But in that instant they shall learn
   The shattering ecstasy of our fire,
    And the weak passionless hearts will burn

   And faint in that amazing glow,
    Until the darkness close above;
   And they will know — poor fools, they'll know! —
    One moment, what it is to love.

   When love has changed to kindliness —
   Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press
   So tight that Time's an old god's dream
   Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff
   Seven million years were not enough
   To think on after, make it seem
   Less than the breath of children playing,
   A blasphemy scarce worth the saying,
   A sorry jest, "When love has grown
   To kindliness — to kindliness!" . . .
   And yet — the best that either's known
   Will change, and wither, and be less,
   At last, than comfort, or its own
   Remembrance.  And when some caress
   Tendered in habit (once a flame
   All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame
   Unworded, in the steady eyes
   We'll have, — THAT day, what shall we do?
   Being so noble, kill the two
   Who've reached their second-best?  Being wise,
   Break cleanly off, and get away.
   Follow down other windier skies
   New lures, alone?  Or shall we stay,
   Since this is all we've known, content
   In the lean twilight of such day,
   And not remember, not lament?
   That time when all is over, and
   Hand never flinches, brushing hand;
   And blood lies quiet, for all you're near;
   And it's but spoken words we hear,
   Where trumpets sang; when the mere skies
   Are stranger and nobler than your eyes;
   And flesh is flesh, was flame before;
   And infinite hungers leap no more
   In the chance swaying of your dress;
   And love has changed to kindliness.

   As those of old drank mummia
    To fire their limbs of lead,
   Making dead kings from Africa
    Stand pandar to their bed;

   Drunk on the dead, and medicined
    With spiced imperial dust,
   In a short night they reeled to find
    Ten centuries of lust.

   So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme,
    Stuffed love's infinity,
   And sucked all lovers of all time
    To rarify ecstasy.

   Helen's the hair shuts out from me
    Verona's livid skies;
   Gypsy the lips I press; and see
    Two Antonys in your eyes.

   The unheard invisible lovely dead
    Lie with us in this place,
   And ghostly hands above my head
    Close face to straining face;

   Their blood is wine along our limbs;
    Their whispering voices wreathe
   Savage forgotten drowsy hymns
    Under the names we breathe;

   Woven from their tomb, and one with it,
    The night wherein we press;
   Their thousand pitchy pyres have lit
    Your flaming nakedness.

   For the uttermost years have cried and clung
    To kiss your mouth to mine;
   And hair long dust was caught, was flung,
    Hand shaken to hand divine,

   And Life has fired, and Death not shaded,
    All Time's uncounted bliss,
   And the height o' the world has flamed and faded,
    Love, that our love be this!

   In a cool curving world he lies
   And ripples with dark ecstasies.
   The kind luxurious lapse and steal
   Shapes all his universe to feel
   And know and be; the clinging stream
   Closes his memory, glooms his dream,
   Who lips the roots o' the shore, and glides
   Superb on unreturning tides.
   Those silent waters weave for him
   A fluctuant mutable world and dim,
   Where wavering masses bulge and gape
   Mysterious, and shape to shape
   Dies momently through whorl and hollow,
   And form and line and solid follow
   Solid and line and form to dream
   Fantastic down the eternal stream;
   An obscure world, a shifting world,
   Bulbous, or pulled to thin, or curled,
   Or serpentine, or driving arrows,
   Or serene slidings, or March narrows.
   There slipping wave and shore are one,
   And weed and mud.  No ray of sun,
   But glow to glow fades down the deep
   (As dream to unknown dream in sleep);
   Shaken translucency illumes
   The hyaline of drifting glooms;
   The strange soft-handed depth subdues
   Drowned colour there, but black to hues,
   As death to living, decomposes —
   Red darkness of the heart of roses,
   Blue brilliant from dead starless skies,
   And gold that lies behind the eyes,
   The unknown unnameable sightless white
   That is the essential flame of night,
   Lustreless purple, hooded green,
   The myriad hues that lie between
   Darkness and darkness! . . .

                                 And all's one.
   Gentle, embracing, quiet, dun,
   The world he rests in, world he knows,
   Perpetual curving.  Only — grows
   An eddy in that ordered falling,
   A knowledge from the gloom, a calling
   Weed in the wave, gleam in the mud —
   The dark fire leaps along his blood;
   Dateless and deathless, blind and still,
   The intricate impulse works its will;
   His woven world drops back; and he,
   Sans providence, sans memory,
   Unconscious and directly driven,
   Fades to some dank sufficient heaven.

   O world of lips, O world of laughter,
   Where hope is fleet and thought flies after,
   Of lights in the clear night, of cries
   That drift along the wave and rise
   Thin to the glittering stars above,
   You know the hands, the eyes of love!
   The strife of limbs, the sightless clinging,
   The infinite distance, and the singing
   Blown by the wind, a flame of sound,
   The gleam, the flowers, and vast around
   The horizon, and the heights above —
   You know the sigh, the song of love!

   But there the night is close, and there
   Darkness is cold and strange and bare;
   And the secret deeps are whisperless;
   And rhythm is all deliciousness;
   And joy is in the throbbing tide,
   Whose intricate fingers beat and glide
   In felt bewildering harmonies
   Of trembling touch; and music is
   The exquisite knocking of the blood.
   Space is no more, under the mud;
   His bliss is older than the sun.
   Silent and straight the waters run.
   The lights, the cries, the willows dim,
   And the dark tide are one with him.

   How can we find? how can we rest? how can
   We, being gods, win joy, or peace, being man?
   We, the gaunt zanies of a witless Fate,
   Who love the unloving and lover hate,
   Forget the moment ere the moment slips,
   Kiss with blind lips that seek beyond the lips,
   Who want, and know not what we want, and cry
   With crooked mouths for Heaven, and throw it by.
   Love's for completeness!  No perfection grows
   'Twixt leg, and arm, elbow, and ear, and nose,
   And joint, and socket; but unsatisfied
   Sprawling desires, shapeless, perverse, denied.
   Finger with finger wreathes; we love, and gape,
   Fantastic shape to mazed fantastic shape,
   Straggling, irregular, perplexed, embossed,
   Grotesquely twined, extravagantly lost
   By crescive paths and strange protuberant ways
   From sanity and from wholeness and from grace.
   How can love triumph, how can solace be,
   Where fever turns toward fever, knee toward knee?
   Could we but fill to harmony, and dwell
   Simple as our thought and as perfectible,
   Rise disentangled from humanity
   Strange whole and new into simplicity,
   Grow to a radiant round love, and bear
   Unfluctuant passion for some perfect sphere,
   Love moon to moon unquestioning, and be
   Like the star Lunisequa, steadfastly
   Following the round clear orb of her delight,
   Patiently ever, through the eternal night!

   Voices out of the shade that cried,
    And long noon in the hot calm places,
   And children's play by the wayside,
    And country eyes, and quiet faces —
    All these were round my steady paces.

   Those that I could have loved went by me;
    Cool gardened homes slept in the sun;
   I heard the whisper of water nigh me,
    Saw hands that beckoned, shone, were gone
    In the green and gold.  And I went on.

   For if my echoing footfall slept,
    Soon a far whispering there'd be
   Of a little lonely wind that crept
    From tree to tree, and distantly
    Followed me, followed me. . . .

   But the blue vaporous end of day
    Brought peace, and pursuit baffled quite,
   Where between pine-woods dipped the way.
    I turned, slipped in and out of sight.
    I trod as quiet as the night.

   The pine-boles kept perpetual hush;
    And in the boughs wind never swirled.
   I found a flowering lowly bush,
    And bowed, slid in, and sighed and curled,
    Hidden at rest from all the world.

   Safe!  I was safe, and glad, I knew!
    Yet — with cold heart and cold wet brows
   I lay.  And the dark fell. . . .  There grew
    Meward a sound of shaken boughs;
    And ceased, above my intricate house;

   And silence, silence, silence found me. . . .
    I felt the unfaltering movement creep
   Among the leaves.  They shed around me
    Calm clouds of scent, that I did weep;
    And stroked my face.  I fell asleep.

   Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
    Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
    You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
   Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
   When we are old, are old. . . ."  "And when we die
    All's over that is ours; and life burns on
   Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
   — "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"

   "We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
    Life is our cry.  We have kept the faith!" we said;
    "We shall go down with unreluctant tread
   Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . .  Proud we were,
   And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
   — And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

   I dreamt I was in love again
    With the One Before the Last,
   And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
    Of that innocent young past.

   But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
    The pain when it did live,
   How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
    Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

   The boy's woe was as keen and clear,
    The boy's love just as true,
   And the One Before the Last, my dear,
    Hurt quite as much as you.

   Sickly I pondered how the lover
    Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
   And sentimentalizes over
    What earned a better doom.

   Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,
    Strews pinkish dust above,
   And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime!
    But THIS — ah, God! — is Love!"

   — Better oblivion hide dead true loves,
    Better the night enfold,
   Than men, to eke the praise of new loves,
    Should lie about the old!

   Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty.
    But here's the worst of it —
   I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty,
    YOU ever hurt abit!

   The stars, a jolly company,
    I envied, straying late and lonely;
   And cried upon their revelry:
    "O white companionship!  You only
   In love, in faith unbroken dwell,
   Friends radiant and inseparable!"

   Light-heart and glad they seemed to me
    And merry comrades (EVEN SO
   GOD OUT OF HEAVEN MAY LAUGH TO SEE
    THE HAPPY CROWDS; AND NEVER KNOW
   THAT IN HIS LONE OBSCURE DISTRESS
   EACH WALKETH IN A WILDERNESS).

   But I, remembering, pitied well
    And loved them, who, with lonely light,
   In empty infinite spaces dwell,
    Disconsolate.  For, all the night,
   I heard the thin gnat-voices cry,
   Star to faint star, across the sky.

   He wakes, who never thought to wake again,
    Who held the end was Death.  He opens eyes
   Slowly, to one long livid oozing plain
    Closed down by the strange eyeless heavens.  He lies;
    And waits; and once in timeless sick surmise
   Through the dead air heaves up an unknown hand,
   Like a dry branch.  No life is in that land,
    Himself not lives, but is a thing that cries;
   An unmeaning point upon the mud; a speck
    Of moveless horror; an Immortal One
   Cleansed of the world, sentient and dead; a fly
    Fast-stuck in grey sweat on a corpse's neck.

   I thought when love for you died, I should die.
   It's dead.  Alone, most strangely, I live on.

Lines Written in the Belief That the Ancient Roman Festival of the Dead
     Was Called Ambarvalia

   Swings the way still by hollow and hill,
    And all the world's a song;
   "She's far," it sings me, "but fair," it rings me,
    "Quiet," it laughs, "and strong!"

   Oh! spite of the miles and years between us,
    Spite of your chosen part,
   I do remember; and I go
    With laughter in my heart.

   So above the little folk that know not,
    Out of the white hill-town,
   High up I clamber; and I remember;
    And watch the day go down.

   Gold is my heart, and the world's golden,
    And one peak tipped with light;
   And the air lies still about the hill
    With the first fear of night;

   Till mystery down the soundless valley
    Thunders, and dark is here;
   And the wind blows, and the light goes,
    And the night is full of fear,

   And I know, one night, on some far height,
    In the tongue I never knew,
   I yet shall hear the tidings clear
    From them that were friends of you.

   They'll call the news from hill to hill,
    Dark and uncomforted,
   Earth and sky and the winds; and I
    Shall know that you are dead.

   I shall not hear your trentals,
    Nor eat your arval bread;
   For the kin of you will surely do
    Their duty by the dead.

   Their little dull greasy eyes will water;
    They'll paw you, and gulp afresh.
   They'll sniffle and weep, and their thoughts will creep
    Like flies on the cold flesh.

   They will put pence on your grey eyes,
    Bind up your fallen chin,
   And lay you straight, the fools that loved you
    Because they were your kin.

   They will praise all the bad about you,
    And hush the good away,
   And wonder how they'll do without you,
    And then they'll go away.

   But quieter than one sleeping,
    And stranger than of old,
   You will not stir for weeping,
    You will not mind the cold;

   But through the night the lips will laugh not,
    The hands will be in place,
   And at length the hair be lying still
    About the quiet face.

   With snuffle and sniff and handkerchief,
    And dim and decorous mirth,
   With ham and sherry, they'll meet to bury
    The lordliest lass of earth.

   The little dead hearts will tramp ungrieving
    Behind lone-riding you,
   The heart so high, the heart so living,
    Heart that they never knew.

   I shall not hear your trentals,
    Nor eat your arval bread,
   Nor with smug breath tell lies of death
    To the unanswering dead.

   With snuffle and sniff and handkerchief,
    The folk who loved you not
   Will bury you, and go wondering
    Back home.  And you will rot.

   But laughing and half-way up to heaven,
    With wind and hill and star,
   I yet shall keep, before I sleep,
    Your Ambarvalia.

   There was a damned successful Poet;
    There was a Woman like the Sun.
   And they were dead.  They did not know it.
    They did not know their time was done.
       They did not know his hymns
       Were silence; and her limbs,
       That had served Love so well,
       Dust, and a filthy smell.

   And so one day, as ever of old,
    Hands out, they hurried, knee to knee;
   On fire to cling and kiss and hold
    And, in the other's eyes, to see
       Each his own tiny face,
       And in that long embrace
       Feel lip and breast grow warm
       To breast and lip and arm.

   So knee to knee they sped again,
    And laugh to laugh they ran, I'm told,
   Across the streets of Hell . . .
                                     And then
    They suddenly felt the wind blow cold,
       And knew, so closely pressed,
       Chill air on lip and breast,
       And, with a sick surprise,
       The emptiness of eyes.

   Here, where love's stuff is body, arm and side
    Are stabbing-sweet 'gainst chair and lamp and wall.
   In every touch more intimate meanings hide;
    And flaming brains are the white heart of all.

   Here, million pulses to one centre beat:
    Closed in by men's vast friendliness, alone,
   Two can be drunk with solitude, and meet
    On the sheer point where sense with knowing's one.

   Here the green-purple clanging royal night,
    And the straight lines and silent walls of town,
   And roar, and glare, and dust, and myriad white
    Undying passers, pinnacle and crown

   Intensest heavens between close-lying faces
    By the lamp's airless fierce ecstatic fire;
   And we've found love in little hidden places,
    Under great shades, between the mist and mire.

   Stay! though the woods are quiet, and you've heard
    Night creep along the hedges.  Never go
   Where tangled foliage shrouds the crying bird,
    And the remote winds sigh, and waters flow!

   Lest — as our words fall dumb on windless noons,
    Or hearts grow hushed and solitary, beneath
   Unheeding stars and unfamiliar moons,
    Or boughs bend over, close and quiet as death, —

   Unconscious and unpassionate and still,
    Cloud-like we lean and stare as bright leaves stare,
   And gradually along the stranger hill
    Our unwalled loves thin out on vacuous air,

   And suddenly there's no meaning in our kiss,
    And your lit upward face grows, where we lie,
   Lonelier and dreadfuller than sunlight is,
    And dumb and mad and eyeless like the sky.

   For moveless limbs no pity I crave,
    That never were swift!  Still all I prize,
   Laughter and thought and friends, I have;
    No fool to heave luxurious sighs
   For the woods and hills that I never knew.
   The more excellent way's yet mine!  And you

   Flower-laden come to the clean white cell,
    And we talk as ever — am I not the same?
   With our hearts we love, immutable,
    You without pity, I without shame.
   We talk as of old; as of old you go
   Out under the sky, and laughing, I know,

   Flit through the streets, your heart all me;
    Till you gain the world beyond the town.
   Then — I fade from your heart, quietly;
    And your fleet steps quicken.  The strong down
   Smiles you welcome there; the woods that love you
   Close lovely and conquering arms above you.

   O ever-moving, O lithe and free!
    Fast in my linen prison I press
   On impassable bars, or emptily
    Laugh in my great loneliness.
   And still in the white neat bed I strive
   Most impotently against that gyve;
   Being less now than a thought, even,
   To you alone with your hills and heaven.

     I

   Hot through Troy's ruin Menelaus broke
    To Priam's palace, sword in hand, to sate
    On that adulterous whore a ten years' hate
   And a king's honour.  Through red death, and smoke,
   And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,
    Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.
    He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim
   Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

   High sat white Helen, lonely and serene.
    He had not remembered that she was so fair,
   And that her neck curved down in such a way;
   And he felt tired.  He flung the sword away,
    And kissed her feet, and knelt before her there,
   The perfect Knight before the perfect Queen.

     II

   So far the poet.  How should he behold
    That journey home, the long connubial years?
    He does not tell you how white Helen bears
   Child on legitimate child, becomes a scold,
   Haggard with virtue.  Menelaus bold
    Waxed garrulous, and sacked a hundred Troys
    'Twixt noon and supper.  And her golden voice
   Got shrill as he grew deafer.  And both were old.

   Often he wonders why on earth he went
    Troyward, or why poor Paris ever came.
   Oft she weeps, gummy-eyed and impotent;
    Her dry shanks twitch at Paris' mumbled name.
   So Menelaus nagged; and Helen cried;
   And Paris slept on by Scamander side.

   How should I know?  The enormous wheels of will
    Drove me cold-eyed on tired and sleepless feet.
   Night was void arms and you a phantom still,
    And day your far light swaying down the street.
   As never fool for love, I starved for you;
    My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.
   Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,
    And your remembered smell most agony.

   Love wakens love!  I felt your hot wrist shiver
    And suddenly the mad victory I planned
     Flashed real, in your burning bending head. . . .
   My conqueror's blood was cool as a deep river
    In shadow; and my heart beneath your hand
     Quieter than a dead man on a bed.

   When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
   Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
   You've given your love to, your adoring hands
   Touch his so intimately that each understands,
   I know, most hidden things; and when I know
   Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
   Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
   Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
   Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,
   That you have given him every touch and move,
   Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,
   — Oh! then I know I'm waiting, lover-wife,
   For the great time when love is at a close,
   And all its fruit's to watch the thickening nose
   And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,
   That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!
   Day after day you'll sit with him and note
   The greasier tie, the dingy wrinkling coat;
   As prettiness turns to pomp, and strength to fat,
   And love, love, love to habit!
                                   And after that,
   When all that's fine in man is at an end,
   And you, that loved young life and clean, must tend
   A foul sick fumbling dribbling body and old,
   When his rare lips hang flabby and can't hold
   Slobber, and you're enduring that worst thing,
   Senility's queasy furtive love-making,
   And searching those dear eyes for human meaning,
   Propping the bald and helpless head, and cleaning
   A scrap that life's flung by, and love's forgotten, —
   Then you'll be tired; and passion dead and rotten;
   And he'll be dirty, dirty!
                               O lithe and free
   And lightfoot, that the poor heart cries to see,
   That's how I'll see your man and you! —

                                             But you
   — Oh, when THAT time comes, you'll be dirty too!