Part 6

REGRETS

As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour Out by the low sand spaces, The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore With lingering embraces,--

So in the tide of life that carries me From where thy true heart dwells, Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee With lessening farewells;

Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets; A care half lost in cares; The saddest of my verses; dim regrets; Thy name among my prayers.

I would the day might come, so waited for, So patiently besought, When I, returning, should fill up once more Thy desolated thought;

And fill thy loneliness that lies apart In still, persistent pain. Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart, As the tide comes again,

And brims the little sea-shore lakes, and sets Seaweeds afloat, and fills The silent pools, rivers and rivulets Among the inland hills?

SONG

My Fair, no beauty of thine will last Save in my love's eternity. Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully, Are lost for ever--their moment past-- Except the few thou givest to me.

Thy sweet words vanish day by day, As all breath of mortality; Thy laughter, done, must cease to be, And all thy dear tones pass away, Except the few that sing to me.

Hide then within my heart, oh, hide All thou art loth should go from thee. Be kinder to thyself and me. My cupful from this river's tide Shall never reach the long sad sea.

SONNET--IN FEBRUARY

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn, Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers, And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers. A poet's face asleep is this grey morn.

Now in the midst of the old world forlorn A mystic child is set in these still hours. I keep this time, even before the flowers, Sacred to all the young and the unborn;

To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat, And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal, And to the future of my own young art,

And, among all these things, to you, my sweet, My friend, to your calm face and the immortal Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart.

SAN LORENZO GIUSTINIANI'S MOTHER

I had not seen my son's dear face (He chose the cloister by God's grace) Since it had come to full flower-time. I hardly guessed at its perfect prime, That folded flower of his dear face.

Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears When on a day in many years One of his Order came. I thrilled, Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled. I doubted, for my mists of tears.

His blessing be with me for ever! My hope and doubt were hard to sever. --That altered face, those holy weeds. I filled his wallet and kissed his beads, And lost his echoing feet for ever.

If to my son my alms were given I know not, and I wait for Heaven. He did not plead for child of mine, But for another Child divine, And unto Him it was surely given.

There is One alone who cannot change; Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange; And all I give is given to One. I might mistake my dearest son, But never the Son who cannot change.

SONNET--THE LOVE OF NARCISSUS

Like him who met his own eyes in the river, The poet trembles at his own long gaze That meets him through the changing nights and days From out great Nature; all her waters quiver With his fair image facing him for ever; The music that he listens to betrays His own heart to his ears; by trackless ways His wild thoughts tend to him in long endeavour.

His dreams are far among the silent hills; His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain With winds at night; strange recognition thrills His lonely heart with piercing love and pain; He knows his sweet mirth in the mountain rills, His weary tears that touch him with the rain.

TO A LOST MELODY

Thou art not dead, O sweet lost melody, Sung beyond memory, When golden to the winds this world of ours Waved wild with boundless flowers; Sung in some past when wildernesses were,-- Not dead, not dead, lost air! Yet in the ages long where lurkest thou, And what soul knows thee now? Wert thou not given to sweeten every wind From that o'erburdened mind That bore thee through the young world, and that tongue By which thou first wert sung? Was not the holy choir the endless dome, And nature all thy home? Did not the warm gale clasp thee to his breast. Lulling thy storms to rest? And is the June air laden with thee now, Passing the summer-bough? And is the dawn-wind on a lonely sea Balmy with thoughts of thee? To rock on daybreak winds dost thou rejoice, As first on his strong voice Whose radiant morning soul did give thee birth, Gave thee to heaven and earth? Or did each bird win one dear note of thee To pipe eternally? Art thou the secret of the small field-flowers Nodding thy time for hours, --Blown by the happy winds from hill to hill, And such a secret still? Or wert thou rapt awhile to other spheres To gladden tenderer ears? Doth music's soul contain thee, precious air, Sleepest thou clasped there, Until a time shall come for thee to start Into some unborn heart? Then wilt thou as the clouds of ages roll, Thou migratory soul, Amid a different, wilder, wilderness --In crowds that throng and press, Revive thy blessed cadences forgotten In some soul new-begotten? Oh, wilt thou ever tire of thy long rest On nature's silent breast? And wilt thou leave thy rainbow showers, to bear A part in human care? --Forsake thy boundless silence to make choice Of some pathetic voice? --Forsake thy stars, thy suns, thy moons, thy skies For man's desiring sighs?

SONNET--THE POET TO NATURE