Part 7

I have no secrets from thee, lyre sublime, My lyre whereof I make my melody. I sing one way like the west wind through thee, With my whole heart, and hear thy sweet strings chime.

But thou, who soundest in my tune and rhyme, Hast tones I wake not, in thy land and sea, Loveliness not for me, secrets from me, Thoughts for another, and another time.

And as, the west wind passed, the south wind alters His intimate sweet things, his hues of noon, The voices of his waves, sound of his pine,

The meanings of his lost heart,--this thought falters In my short song--'Another bard shall tune Thee, my one Lyre, to other songs than mine.'

THE POET TO HIS CHILDHOOD

In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand, --Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land. And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills, When you thought, and chose the hills.

'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain. With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain, And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be Unconsoled by sympathy.'

But how dared you use me so? For you bring my ripe years low To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know. And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears. But you mark not, through the years.

'To the mountain leads my way. If the plains are green to-day, These my barren hills are flushing faintly, strangely, in the May, With the presence of the Spring amongst the smallest flowers that grow.' But the summer in the snow?

Do you know, who are so bold, how in sooth the rule will hold, Settled by a wayward child's ideal at some ten years old? --How the human arms you slip from, thoughts and love you stay not for, Will not open to you more?

You were rash then, little child, for the skies with storms are wild, And you faced the dim horizon with its whirl of mists, and smiled, Climbed a little higher, lonelier, in the solitary sun, To feel how the winds came on.

But your sunny silence there, solitude so light to bear, Will become a long dumb world up in the colder sadder air, And the little mournful lonelinesses in the little hills Wider wilderness fulfils.

And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, You will stand upon the thresholds with a face or dumb desire, Nor be known by any fire.

It is memory that shrinks. You were all too brave, methinks, Climbing solitudes of flowering cistus and the thin wild pinks, Musing, setting to a haunting air in one vague reverie All the life that was to be.

With a smile do I complain in the safety of the pain, Knowing that my feet can never quit their solitudes again; But regret may turn with longing to that one hour's choice you had, When the silence broodeth sad.

I rebel not, child gone by, but obey you wonderingly, For you knew not, young rash speaker, all you spoke, and now will I, With the life, and all the loneliness revealed that you thought fit, Sing the Amen, knowing it.

SONNET

A poet of one mood in all my lays, Ranging all life to sing one only love, Like a west wind across the world I move, Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways.

The countries change, but not the west-wind days Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above, And on all seas the colours of a dove, And on all fields a flash of silver greys.

I make the whole world answer to my art And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears I change not ever, bearing, for my part, One thought that is the treasure of my years, A small cloud full of rain upon my heart And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears.

AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL

There's a feast undated yet: Both our true lives hold it fast,-- The first day we ever met. What a great day came and passed! --Unknown then, but known at last.

And we met: You knew not me, Mistress of your joys and fears; Held my hands that held the key Of the treasure of your years, Of the fountain of your tears.

For you knew not it was I, And I knew not it was you. We have learnt, as days went by. But a flower struck root and grew Underground, and no one knew.

Days of days! Unmarked it rose, In whose hours we were to meet; And forgotten passed. Who knows, Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet, At the coming of your feet?

One mere day, we thought; the measure Of such days the year fulfils. Now, how dearly would we treasure Something from its fields, its rills, And its memorable hills;

--But one leaf of oak or lime, Or one blossom from its bowers No one gathered at the time. Oh, to keep that day of ours By one relic of its flowers!

SONNET--THE NEOPHYTE