a reading of life-第5节
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By natural yearnings; all the happy scenes;
The picture of an earth allied to heaven;
Between them the known smile behind black masks;
Rightly their various moods interpreted;
And frolic because toilful children borne
With larger comprehension of Earth's aim
At loftier; clearer; sweeter; by their aid。
Poem: The Night…Walk
Awakes for me and leaps from shroud
All radiantly the moon's own night
Of folded showers in streamer cloud;
Our shadows down the highway white
Or deep in woodland woven…boughed;
With yon and yon a stem alight。
I see marauder runagates
Across us shoot their dusky wink;
I hear the parliament of chats
In haws beside the river's brink;
And drops the vole off alder…banks;
To push his arrow through the stream。
These busy people had our thanks
For tickling sight and sound; but theme
They were not more than breath we drew
Delighted with our world's embrace:
The moss…root smell where beeches grew;
And watered grass in breezy space;
The silken heights; of ghostly bloom
Among their folds; by distance draped。
'Twas Youth; rapacious to consume;
That cried to have its chaos shaped:
Absorbing; little noting; still
Enriched; and thinking it bestowed;
With wistful looks on each far hill
For something hidden; something owed。
Unto his mantled sister; Day
Had given the secret things we sought
And she was grave and saintly gay;
At times she fluttered; spoke her thought;
She flew on it; then folded wings;
In meditation passing lone;
To breathe around the secret things;
Which have no word; and yet are known;
Of thirst for them are known; as air
Is health in blood: we gained enough
By this to feel it honest fare;
Impalpable; not barren; stuff。
A pride of legs in motion kept
Our spirits to their task meanwhile;
And what was deepest dreaming slept:
The posts that named the swallowed mile;
Beside the straight canal the hut
Abandoned; near the river's source
Its infant chirp; the shortest cut;
The roadway missed; were our discourse;
At times dear poets; whom some view
Transcendent or subdued evoked
To speak the memorable; the true;
The luminous as a moon uncloaked;
For proof that there; among earth's dumb;
A soul had passed and said our best。
Or it might be we chimed on some
Historic favourite's astral crest;
With part to reverence in its gleam;
And part to rivalry the shout:
So royal; unuttered; is youth's dream
Of power within to strike without。
But most the silences were sweet;
Like mothers' breasts; to bid it feel
It lived in such divine conceit
As envies aught we stamp for real。
To either then an untold tale
Was Life; and author; hero; we。
The chapters holding peaks to scale;
Or depths to fathom; made our glee;
For we were armed of inner fires;
Unbled in us the ripe desires;
And passion rolled a quiet sea;
Whereon was Love the phantom sail。
Poem: The Hueless Love
Unto that love must we through fire attain;
Which those two held as breath of common air;
The hands of whom were given in bond elsewhere;
Whom Honour was untroubled to restrain。
Midway the road of our life's term they met;
And one another knew without surprise;
Nor cared that beauty stood in mutual eyes;
Nor at their tardy meeting nursed regret。
To them it was revealed how they had found
The kindred nature and the needed mind;
The mate by long conspiracy designed;
The flower to plant in sanctuary ground。
Avowed in vigilant solicitude
For either; what most lived within each breast
They let be seen: yet every human test
Demanding righteousness approved them good。
She leaned on a strong arm; and little feared
Abandonment to help if heaved or sank
Her heart at intervals while Love looked blank;
Life rosier were she but less revered。
An arm that never shook did not obscure
Her woman's intuition of the bliss …
Their tempter's moment o'er the black abyss;
Across the narrow plank … he could abjure。
Then came a day that clipped for him the thread;
And their first touch of lips; as he lay cold;
Was all of earthly in their love untold;
Beyond all earthly known to them who wed。
So has there come the gust at South…west flung
By sudden volt on eves of freezing mist;
When sister snowflake sister snowdrop kissed;
And one passed out; and one the bell…head hung。
Poem: Song In The Songless
They have no song; the sedges dry;
And still they sing。
It is within my breast they sing;
As I pass by。
Within my breast they touch a string;
They wake a sigh。
There is but sound of sedges dry;
In me they sing。
Poem: Union In Disseverance
Sunset worn to its last vermilion he;
She that star overhead in slow descent:
That white star with the front of angel she;
He undone in his rays of glory spent
Halo; fair as the bow…shot at his rise;
He casts round her; and knows his hour of rest
Incomplete; were the light for which he dies;
Less like joy of the dove that wings to nest。
Lustrous momently; near on earth she sinks;
Life's full throb over breathless and abased:
Yet stand they; though impalpable the links;
One; more one than the bridally embraced。
Poem: The Burden Of Strength
If that thou hast the gift of strength; then know
Thy part is to uplift the trodden low;
Else in a giant's grasp until the end
A hopeless wrestler shall thy soul contend。
Poem: The Main Regret
'Written for the Charing Cross Album'
I。
Seen; too clear and historic within us; our sins of omission
Frown when the Autumn days strike us all ruthlessly bare。
They of our mortal diseases find never healing physician;
Errors they of the soul; past the one hope to repair。
II。
Sunshine might we have been unto seed under soil; or have scattered
Seed to ascendant suns brighter than any that shone。
Even the limp…legged beggar a sick desperado has flattered
Back to a half…sloughed life cheered by the mere human tone。
Poem: Alternation
Between the fountain and the rill
I passed; and saw the mighty will
To leap at sky; the careless run;
As earth would lead her little son。
Beneath them throbs an urgent well;
That here is play; and there is war。
I know not which had most to tell
Of whence we spring and what we are。
Poem: Hawarden
When comes the lighted day for men to read
Life's meaning; with the work before their hands
Till this good gift of breath from debt is freed;
Earth will not hear her children's wailful bands
Deplore the chieftain fall'n in sob and dirge;
Nor they look where is darkness; but on high。
The sun that dropped down our horizon's verge;
Illumes his labours through the travelled sky;
Now seen in sum; most glorious; and 'tis known
By what our warrior wrought we hold him fast。
A splendid image built of man has flown;
His deeds inspired of God outstep a Past。
Ours the great privilege to have had one
Among us who celestial tasks has done。
Poem: At The Close
To Thee; dear God of Mercy; both appeal;
Who straightway sound the call to arms。 Thou know'st;
And that black spot in each embattled host;
Spring of the blood…stream; later wilt reveal。
Now is it red artillery and white steel;
Till on a day will ring the victor's boast;
That 'tis Thy chosen towers uppermost;
Where Thy rejected grovels under heel。
So in all times of man's descent insane
To brute; did strength and craft combining strike;
Even as a God of Armies; his fell blow。
But at the close he entered Thy domain;
Dear God of Mercy; and if lion…like
He tore the fall'n; the Eternal was his Foe。
Poem: Forest History
I。
Beneath the vans of doom did men pass in。
Heroic who came out; for round them hung
A wavering phantom's red volcano tongue;
With league…long lizard tail and fishy fin:
II。
Old Earth's original Dragon; there retired
To his last fastness; overthrown by few。
Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew。
Then man to play devorant straight was fired。
III。
More intimate became the forest fear
While pillared darkness hatched malicious life
At either elbow; wolf or gnome or knife
And wary slid the glance from ear to ear。
IV。
In chillness; like a clouded lantern…ray;
The forest's heart of fog on mossed morass;
On purple pool and silky cotton…grass;
Revealed where lured the swallower byway。
V。
Dead outlook; flattened back with hard rebound
Off walls of distance; left each mounted height。
It seemed a giant hag…fiend; churning spite
Of humble human being; held the ground。
VI。
Through friendless wastes; through treacherous woodland; slow
The feet sustained by track of feet pursued
Pained steps; and found the common bro