UNDER THE OAK
You, if you were sensible,
When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one
dreadful,
You would not turn and answer me
"The night is wonderful."
Even you, if you knew
How this darkness soaks me through and through,
and infuses
Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to dis-
tinguish
What hurts, from what amuses.
For I tell you
Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul's fluid
Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam
At the knife of a Druid.
Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies,
My life runs out.
I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak,
Gout upon gout.
Above me springs the blood-born mistletoe
In the shady smoke.
But who are you, twittering to and fro
Beneath the oak?
What thing better are you, what worse?
What have you to do with the mysteries
Of this ancient place, of my ancient curse?
What place have you in my histories?
SIGH NO MORE
THE cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling,
Calling,
Of a meaningless monotony is palling
All my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered
wood.
May-blossom and blue bird's-eye flowers falling,
Falling
In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling
Messages of true-love down the dust of the high-
road.
I do not like to hear the gentle grieving,
Grieving
Of the she-dove in the blossom, still believing
Love will yet again return to her and make all good.
When I know that there must ever be deceiving,
Deceiving
Of the mournful constant heart, that while she's
weaving
Her woes, her lover woos and sings within another
wood.
Oh, boisterous the cuckoo shouts, forestalling,
Stalling
A progress down the intricate enthralling
By-paths where the wanton-headed flowers doff
their hood.
And like a laughter leads me onward, heaving,
Heaving
A sigh among the shadows, thus retrieving
A decent short regret for that which once was very
good.