Part 8

The Hill

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass. You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass; Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, When we are old, are old. . . ." "And when we die All's over that is ours; and life burns on Through other lovers, other lips," said I, -- "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"

"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here. Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said; "We shall go down with unreluctant tread Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud we were, And laughed, that had such brave true things to say. -- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

The One Before the Last

I dreamt I was in love again With the One Before the Last, And smiled to greet the pleasant pain Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been The pain when it did live, How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

The boy's woe was as keen and clear, The boy's love just as true, And the One Before the Last, my dear, Hurt quite as much as you.

* * * * *

Sickly I pondered how the lover Wrongs the unanswering tomb, And sentimentalizes over What earned a better doom.

Gently he tombs the poor dim last time, Strews pinkish dust above, And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime! But THIS -- ah, God! -- is Love!"

-- Better oblivion hide dead true loves, Better the night enfold, Than men, to eke the praise of new loves, Should lie about the old!

* * * * *

Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty. But here's the worst of it -- I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty, YOU ever hurt abit!

The Jolly Company

The stars, a jolly company, I envied, straying late and lonely; And cried upon their revelry: "O white companionship! You only In love, in faith unbroken dwell, Friends radiant and inseparable!"

Light-heart and glad they seemed to me And merry comrades (EVEN SO GOD OUT OF HEAVEN MAY LAUGH TO SEE THE HAPPY CROWDS; AND NEVER KNOW THAT IN HIS LONE OBSCURE DISTRESS EACH WALKETH IN A WILDERNESS).

But I, remembering, pitied well And loved them, who, with lonely light, In empty infinite spaces dwell, Disconsolate. For, all the night, I heard the thin gnat-voices cry, Star to faint star, across the sky.

The Life Beyond

He wakes, who never thought to wake again, Who held the end was Death. He opens eyes Slowly, to one long livid oozing plain Closed down by the strange eyeless heavens. He lies; And waits; and once in timeless sick surmise Through the dead air heaves up an unknown hand, Like a dry branch. No life is in that land, Himself not lives, but is a thing that cries; An unmeaning point upon the mud; a speck Of moveless horror; an Immortal One Cleansed of the world, sentient and dead; a fly Fast-stuck in grey sweat on a corpse's neck.

I thought when love for you died, I should die. It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on.

Lines Written in the Belief That the Ancient Roman Festival of the Dead Was Called Ambarvalia

Swings the way still by hollow and hill, And all the world's a song; "She's far," it sings me, "but fair," it rings me, "Quiet," it laughs, "and strong!"

Oh! spite of the miles and years between us, Spite of your chosen part, I do remember; and I go With laughter in my heart.

So above the little folk that know not, Out of the white hill-town, High up I clamber; and I remember; And watch the day go down.

Gold is my heart, and the world's golden, And one peak tipped with light; And the air lies still about the hill With the first fear of night;

Till mystery down the soundless valley Thunders, and dark is here; And the wind blows, and the light goes, And the night is full of fear,

And I know, one night, on some far height, In the tongue I never knew, I yet shall hear the tidings clear From them that were friends of you.

They'll call the news from hill to hill, Dark and uncomforted, Earth and sky and the winds; and I Shall know that you are dead.