Part 6

FANTASIA

Here in Samarcand they offer emeralds, Pure as frozen drops of sea-water, Rubies, pale as dew-ponds stained with slaughter, Where the fairies fought for a king's daughter In the elfin upland. Here they sell you jade and calcedony, And the matrix of the turquoise, Spheres of onyx held in eagles' claws, But they keep the gems as far asunder From the dull stones as the lightning from the thunder; They can never come together On the mats of Turkish leather In the booths of Samarcand.

Here they sell you balls of nard and honey, And squat jars of clarid butter, And the cheese from Kurdistan. When you offer Frankish money, Then they scowl and curse and mutter, Deep in Kurdish or Persan For they want your heart out and my hand In the booths of Samarcand.

They would sell your heart's blood separate, In a jar with a gold brim, With a text of burning hatred Coiled around the rim; They would sell my hand upon a beam of teak wood, In the other scale a feather curled; They would sell your heart upon a silver balance Weighed against the world. But your heart could never touch my hand, They could never come together On the mats of Turkish leather In the booths of Samarcand.

THE LOVER TO HIS LASS

Crown her with stars, this angel of our planet, Cover her with morning, this thing of pure delight, Mantle her with midnight till a mortal cannot See her for the garments of the light and the night.

How far I wandered, worlds away and far away, Heard a voice but knew it not in the clear cold, Many a wide circle and many a wan star away, Dwelling in the chambers where the worlds were growing old.

Saw them growing old and heard them falling Like ripe fruit when a tree is in the wind; Saw the seraphs gather them, their clarion voices calling In rounds of cheering labour till the orchard floor was thinned.

Saw a whole universe turn to its setting, Old and cold and weary, gray and cold as death, But before mine eyes were veiled in forgetting, Something always caught my soul and held its breath.

Caught it up and held it, now I know the reason; Governed it and soothed it, now I know why; Nurtured it and trained it and kept it for the season When new worlds should blossom in the springtime sky.

How have they blossomed, see the sky is like a garden! Ah! how fresh the worlds look hanging on the slope! Pluck one and wear it, Love, and ask the Gardener's pardon, Pluck out the Pleiads like a spray of heliotrope.

See Aldebaran like a red rose clamber, See brave Betelgeux pranked with poppy light; This young earth must float in floods of amber Glowing with a crocus flame in the dells of night.

O you cannot cheat the soul of an inborn ambition, 'Tis a naked viewless thing living in its thought, But it mounts through errors and by valleys of contrition Till it conquers destiny and finds the thing it sought.

Crown her with stars, this angel of our planet, Cover her with morning, this thing of pure delight, Mantle her with midnight till a mortal cannot See her for the garments of the light and the night.

THE GHOST'S STORY

All my life long I heard the step Of some one I would know, Break softly in upon my days And lightly come and go.

A foot so brisk I said must bear A heart that's clean and clear; If that companion blithe would come, I should be happy here.

But though I waited long and well, He never came at all, I grew aweary of the void, Even of the light foot-fall.

From loneliness to loneliness I felt my spirit grope-- At last I knew the uttermost, The loneliness of hope.

And just upon the border land, Where flesh and spirit part, I knew the secret foot-fall was The beating of my heart.

NIGHT

The night is old, and all the world Is wearied out with strife; A long gray mist lies heavy and wan Above the house of life.

Four stars burn up and are unquelled By the low, shrunken moon; Her spirit draws her down and down-- She shall be buried soon.

There is a sound that is no sound, Yet fine it falls and clear, The whisper of the spinning earth To the tranced atmosphere.

An odour lives where once was air, A strange, unearthly scent, From the burning of the four great stars Within the firmament.

The universe, deathless and old, Breathes, yet is void of breath: As still as death that seems to move And yet is still as death.

THE APPARITION

Gentle angel with your mantle, All of tender green, I was yearning for a vision Of the life unseen.