No one lives in the old house; long ago
The voices of men and women left it lonely.
They shuttered the sightless windows in a row,
Imprisoning empty darkness--darkness only.
Beyond the garden-closes, with sudden thunder
The lumbering troop-train passing clanks and jangles;
And I, a stranger, peer with careless wonder
Into the thickets of the garden tangles.
Yet, as I pass, a transient vision dawns
Ghostly upon my pondering spirit's gloom,
Of grey lavender bushes and weedy lawns
And a solitary cherry-tree in bloom....
No one lives in the old house: year by year
The plaster crumbles on the lonely walls:
The apple falls in the lush grass; the pear,
Pulpy with ripeness, on the pathway falls.
Yet this the garden was, where, on spring nights
Under the cherry-blossom, lovers plighted
Have wondered at the moony billows white,
Dreaming uncountable springs by love delighted;
Whose ears have heard the blackbird's jolly whistle,
The shadowy cries of bats in twilight flitting
Zigzag beneath the eaves; or, on the thistle,
The twitter of autumn birds swinging and sitting;
Whose eyes, on winter evenings, slow returning
Saw on the frosted paths pale lamplight fall
Streaming, or, on the hearth, red embers burning,
And shadows of children playing in the hall.
Where have they gone, lovers of another day?
(No one lives in the old house; long ago
They shuttered the sightless windows....) Where are they,
Whose eyes delighted in this moony snow?
I cannot tell ... and little enough they care,
Though April spray the cherry-boughs with light,
And autumn pile her harvest unaware
Under the walls that echoed their delight.
I cannot tell ... yet I am as those lovers;
For me, who pass on my predestinate way,
The prodigal blossom billows and recovers
In ghostly gardens a hundred miles away.
Yet, in my heart, a melancholy rapture
Tells me that eyes, which now an iron haste
Hurries to iron days, may here recapture
A vision of ancient loveliness gone to waste.
THE DHOWS
South of Guardafui with a dark tide flowing
We hailed two ships with tattered canvas bent to the monsoon,
Hung betwixt the outer sea and pale surf showing
Where dead cities of Libya lay bleaching in the moon.
'Oh whither be ye sailing with torn sails broken?'
'We sail, we sail for Sheba, at Suliman's behest,
With carven silver phalli for the ebony maids of Ophir
From brown-skinned baharias of Arabia the Blest.'
'Oh whither be ye sailing, with your dark flag flying?'
'We sail, with creaking cedar, towards the Northern Star.
The helmsman singeth wearily, and in our hold are lying
A hundred slaves in shackles from the marts of Zanzibar.'
'Oh whither be ye sailing...?'
'Alas, we sail no longer:
Our hulls are wrack, our sails are dust, as any man might know.
And why should you torment us? ... Your iron keels are stronger
Than ghostly ships that sailed from Tyre a thousand years ago.'
THE GIFT
Marching on Tanga, marching the parch'd plain
Of wavering spear-grass past Pangani River,
England came to me--me who had always ta'en
But never given before--England, the giver,
In a vision of three poplar-trees that shiver
On still evenings of summer, after rain,
By Slapton Ley, where reed-beds start and quiver
When scarce a ripple moves the upland grain.
Then I thanked God that now I had suffered pain,
And, as the parch'd plain, thirst, and lain awake
Shivering all night through till cold daybreak:
In that I count these sufferings my gain
And her acknowledgment. Nay, more, would fain
Suffer as many more for her sweet sake.
FIVE DEGREES SOUTH
I love all waves and lovely water in motion,
That wavering iris in comb of the blown spray:
Iris of tumbled nautilus in the wake's commotion,
Their spread sails dipped in a marmoreal way
Unquarried, wherein are greeny bubbles blowing
Plumes of faint spray, cool in the deep
And lucent seas, that pause not in their flowing
To lap the southern starlight while they sleep.
These I have seen, these I have loved and known:
I have seen Jupiter, that great star, swinging
Like a ship's lantern, silent and alone
Within his sea of sky, and heard the singing
Of the south trade, that siren of the air,
Who shivers the taut shrouds, and singeth there.
104° FAHRENHEIT
To-night I lay with fever in my veins
Consumed, tormented creature of fire and ice,
And, weaving the enhavock'd brain's device,
Dreamed that for evermore I must walk these plains
Where sunlight slayeth life, and where no rains
Abated the fierce air, nor slaked its fire:
So that death seemed the end of all desire,
To ease the distracted body of its pains.
And so I died, and from my eyes the glare
Faded, nor had I further need of breath;
But when I reached my hand to find you there
Beside me, I found nothing.... Lonely was death.
And with a cry I wakened, but to hear
Thin wings of fever singing in my ear.
FEVER-TREES