Part 3

All's well and all's well! Gay the lights of Heaven show! In some moist and Heavenly place We will set it out to grow.

JOURNEY

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over me--I am so tired, so tired Of passing pleasant places! All my life, Following Care along the dusty road, Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed; Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long Over my shoulder have I looked at peace; And now I fain would lie in this long grass And close my eyes. Yet onward! Cat birds call Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry, Drawing the twilight close about their throats. Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees Pause in their dance and break the ring for me; Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant, Look back and beckon ere they disappear. Only my heart, only my heart responds. Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side All through the dragging day,--sharp underfoot And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs-- But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach, And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling, The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.

EEL-GRASS

No matter what I say, All that I really love Is the rain that flattens on the bay, And the eel-grass in the cove; The jingle-shells that lie and bleach At the tide-line, and the trace Of higher tides along the beach: Nothing in this place.

ELEGY BEFORE DEATH

There will be rose and rhododendron When you are dead and under ground; Still will be heard from white syringas Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;

Still will the tamaracks be raining After the rain has ceased, and still Will there be robins in the stubble, Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.

Spring will not ail nor autumn falter; Nothing will know that you are gone, Saving alone some sullen plough-land None but yourself sets foot upon;

Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed Nothing will know that you are dead,-- These, and perhaps a useless wagon Standing beside some tumbled shed.

Oh, there will pass with your great passing Little of beauty not your own,-- Only the light from common water, Only the grace from simple stone!

THE BEAN-STALK

Ho, Giant! This is I! I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky! La,--but it's lovely, up so high!

This is how I came,--I put Here my knee, there my foot, Up and up, from shoot to shoot-- And the blessed bean-stalk thinning Like the mischief all the time, Till it took me rocking, spinning, In a dizzy, sunny circle, Making angles with the root, Far and out above the cackle Of the city I was born in, Till the little dirty city In the light so sheer and sunny Shone as dazzling bright and pretty As the money that you find In a dream of finding money-- What a wind! What a morning!--

Till the tiny, shiny city, When I shot a glance below, Shaken with a giddy laughter, Sick and blissfully afraid, Was a dew-drop on a blade, And a pair of moments after Was the whirling guess I made,-- And the wind was like a whip

Cracking past my icy ears, And my hair stood out behind, And my eyes were full of tears, Wide-open and cold, More tears than they could hold, The wind was blowing so, And my teeth were in a row, Dry and grinning, And I felt my foot slip, And I scratched the wind and whined, And I clutched the stalk and jabbered, With my eyes shut blind,-- What a wind! What a wind!

Your broad sky, Giant, Is the shelf of a cupboard; I make bean-stalks, I'm A builder, like yourself, But bean-stalks is my trade, I couldn't make a shelf, Don't know how they're made, Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant-- La, what a climb!

WEEDS

White with daisies and red with sorrel And empty, empty under the sky!-- Life is a quest and love a quarrel-- Here is a place for me to lie.

Daisies spring from damned seeds, And this red fire that here I see Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds, Cursed by farmers thriftily.

But here, unhated for an hour, The sorrel runs in ragged flame, The daisy stands, a bastard flower, Like flowers that bear an honest name.

And here a while, where no wind brings The baying of a pack athirst, May sleep the sleep of blessed things, The blood too bright, the brow accurst.

PASSER MORTUUS EST

Death devours all lovely things; Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness,--presently Every bed is narrow.

Unremembered as old rain Dries the sheer libation, And the little petulant hand Is an annotation.

After all, my erstwhile dear, My no longer cherished, Need we say it was not love, Now that love is perished?

PASTORAL

If it were only still!-- With far away the shrill Crying of a cock; Or the shaken bell From a cow's throat Moving through the bushes; Or the soft shock Of wizened apples falling From an old tree In a forgotten orchard Upon the hilly rock!