Part 5

No matter why, nor whence, nor when she came, There was her place. No matter what men said, No matter what she was; living or dead, Faithful or not, he loved her all the same. The story was as old as human shame, But ever since that lonely night she fled, With books to blind him, he had only read The story of the ashes and the flame.

There she was always coming pretty soon To fool him back, with penitent scared eyes That had in them the laughter of the moon For baffled lovers, and to make him think -- Before she gave him time enough to wink -- Sin's kisses were the keys to Paradise.

For Some Poems by Matthew Arnold

Sweeping the chords of Hellas with firm hand, He wakes lost echoes from song's classic shore, And brings their crystal cadence back once more To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land Where God's truth, cramped and fettered with a band Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore Of heroes and the men that long before Wrought the romance of ages yet unscanned.

Still does a cry through sad Valhalla go For Balder, pierced with Lok's unhappy spray -- For Balder, all but spared by Frea's charms; And still does art's imperial vista show, On the hushed sands of Oxus, far away, Young Sohrab dying in his father's arms.

Amaryllis

Once, when I wandered in the woods alone, An old man tottered up to me and said, "Come, friend, and see the grave that I have made For Amaryllis." There was in the tone Of his complaint such quaver and such moan That I took pity on him and obeyed, And long stood looking where his hands had laid An ancient woman, shrunk to skin and bone.

Far out beyond the forest I could hear The calling of loud progress, and the bold Incessant scream of commerce ringing clear; But though the trumpets of the world were glad, It made me lonely and it made me sad To think that Amaryllis had grown old.

Kosmos

Ah, -- shuddering men that falter and shrink so To look on death, -- what were the days we live, Where life is half a struggle to forgive, But for the love that finds us when we go? Is God a jester? Does he laugh and throw Poor branded wretches here to sweat and strive For some vague end that never shall arrive? And is He not yet weary of the show?

Think of it, all ye millions that have planned, And only planned, the largess of hard youth! Think of it, all ye builders on the sand, Whose works are down! -- Is love so small, forsooth? Be brave! To-morrow you will understand The doubt, the pain, the triumph, and the Truth!

Zola

Because he puts the compromising chart Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid; Because he counts the price that you have paid For innocence, and counts it from the start, You loathe him. But he sees the human heart Of God meanwhile, and in God's hand has weighed Your squeamish and emasculate crusade Against the grim dominion of his art.

Never until we conquer the uncouth Connivings of our shamed indifference (We call it Christian faith!) are we to scan The racked and shrieking hideousness of Truth To find, in hate's polluted self-defence Throbbing, the pulse, the divine heart of man.

The Pity of the Leaves

Vengeful across the cold November moors, Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleak Sad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek, Reverberant through lonely corridors. The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce, Words out of lips that were no more to speak -- Words of the past that shook the old man's cheek Like dead, remembered footsteps on old floors.

And then there were the leaves that plagued him so! The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outside Skipped with a freezing whisper. Now and then They stopped, and stayed there -- just to let him know How dead they were; but if the old man cried, They fluttered off like withered souls of men.

Aaron Stark

Withal a meagre man was Aaron Stark, -- Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and morose. A miser was he, with a miser's nose, And eyes like little dollars in the dark. His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark; And when he spoke there came like sullen blows Through scattered fangs a few snarled words and close, As if a cur were chary of its bark.

Glad for the murmur of his hard renown, Year after year he shambled through the town, -- A loveless exile moving with a staff; And oftentimes there crept into his ears A sound of alien pity, touched with tears, -- And then (and only then) did Aaron laugh.

The Garden

There is a fenceless garden overgrown With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves; And once, among the roses and the sheaves, The Gardener and I were there alone. He led me to the plot where I had thrown The fennel of my days on wasted ground, And in that riot of sad weeds I found The fruitage of a life that was my own.

My life! Ah, yes, there was my life, indeed! And there were all the lives of humankind; And they were like a book that I could read, Whose every leaf, miraculously signed, Outrolled itself from Thought's eternal seed, Love-rooted in God's garden of the mind.

Cliff Klingenhagen

Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine With him one day; and after soup and meat, And all the other things there were to eat, Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign For me to choose at all, he took the draught Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed It off, and said the other one was mine.

And when I asked him what the deuce he meant By doing that, he only looked at me And grinned, and said it was a way of his. And though I know the fellow, I have spent Long time a-wondering when I shall be As happy as Cliff Klingenhagen is.

Charles Carville's Eyes

A melancholy face Charles Carville had, But not so melancholy as it seemed, -- When once you knew him, -- for his mouth redeemed His insufficient eyes, forever sad: In them there was no life-glimpse, good or bad, -- Nor joy nor passion in them ever gleamed; His mouth was all of him that ever beamed, His eyes were sorry, but his mouth was glad.