Part 5

Shepherds on the hills, In the pastures, drowsing To the tinkling bells Of the brown sheep browsing; Sailors crying through the storm; Scholars at your study; hunters Lost amid the whirling winter's Whiteness uniform;

Men that long for sleep; Men that wake and revel;-- If an old song leap To your senses' level At such moments, may it be Sometimes, though a moment only, Some forgotten, quaint and homely Vehicle of me!

Women at your toil, Women at your leisure Till the kettle boil, Snatch of me your pleasure, Where the broom-straw marks the leaf; Women quiet with your weeping Lest you wake a workman sleeping, Mix me with your grief!

Boys and girls that steal From the shocking laughter Of the old, to kneel By a dripping rafter Under the discolored eaves, Out of trunks with hingeless covers Lifting tales of saints and lovers, Travelers, goblins, thieves,

Suns that shine by night, Mountains made from valleys,-- Bear me to the light, Flat upon your bellies By the webby window lie, Where the little flies are crawling,-- Read me, margin me with scrawling, Do not let me die!

Sexton, ply your trade! In a shower of gravel Stamp upon your spade! Many a rose shall ravel, Many a metal wreath shall rust In the rain, and I go singing Through the lots where you are flinging Yellow clay on dust!

ALMS

My heart is what it was before, A house where people come and go; But it is winter with your love, The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth, I blow the coals to blaze again; But it is winter with your love, The frost is thick upon the pane.

I know a winter when it comes: The leaves are listless on the boughs; I watched your love a little while, And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south, I snap the dead brown from the stem; But it is winter with your love,-- I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched The small, ill-natured sparrows' fray; I loved the beggar that I fed, I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight; Today I reach around the door And set a bowl upon the step; My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love; I scatter crumbs upon the sill, And close the window,--and the birds May take or leave them, as they will.

INLAND

People that build their houses inland, People that buy a plot of ground Shaped like a house, and build a house there, Far from the sea-board, far from the sound

Of water sucking the hollow ledges, Tons of water striking the shore,-- What do they long for, as I long for One salt smell of the sea once more?

People the waves have not awakened, Spanking the boats at the harbor's head, What do they long for, as I long for,-- Starting up in my inland bed,

Beating the narrow walls, and finding Neither a window nor a door, Screaming to God for death by drowning,-- One salt taste of the sea once more?

TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG

Minstrel, what have you to do With this man that, after you, Sharing not your happy fate, Sat as England's Laureate? Vainly, in these iron days, Strives the poet in your praise, Minstrel, by whose singing side Beauty walked, until you died.

Still, though none should hark again, Drones the blue-fly in the pane, Thickly crusts the blackest moss, Blows the rose its musk across, Floats the boat that is forgot None the less to Camelot.

Many a bard's untimely death Lends unto his verses breath; Here's a song was never sung: Growing old is dying young. Minstrel, what is this to you: That a man you never knew, When your grave was far and green, Sat and gossipped with a queen?

Thalia knows how rare a thing Is it, to grow old and sing; When a brown and tepid tide Closes in on every side. Who shall say if Shelley's gold Had withstood it to grow old?

WRAITH

"Thin Rain, whom are you haunting, That you haunt my door?" --Surely it is not I she's wanting; Someone living here before-- "Nobody's in the house but me: You may come in if you like and see."

Thin as thread, with exquisite fingers,-- Have you seen her, any of you?-- Grey shawl, and leaning on the wind, And the garden showing through?

Glimmering eyes,--and silent, mostly, Sort of a whisper, sort of a purr, Asking something, asking it over, If you get a sound from her.--