Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and star-strewn air,
And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':—
All the wild bloom and reach of dreams that never were,
—Never to be, now.
So, in the throbbing dark, where ebbs the old refrain,
A starved heart hears.
And silver-bright, and silver-blurred again
With moonlight and with tears.
All the long night they go, down the long summer lane,
The long, long years.
Ah but, Belovèd, men may do
All things to music;—march, and die;
And wear the longest vigil through,
… And say good-by.
All things to music!—Ah, but where
Peace never falls upon the air;—
These city-ways of dark and din
Where greed has shut and barred them in!
And thundering, swart against the sky,
That whirlwind,—never to go by—
Of tracks and wheels, that overhead
Beat back the senses with their roar
And menace of undying war,—
War—war—for daily bread!
All things to silence! Ah, but where
Men dwell not, but must make a lair;—
And Sorrow may not sit alone,
Nor Love hear music of its own;
And Thought that strives to breast that sea
Must struggle even for memory.
Day-long, night-long,—besieging din
To thrust all pain the deeper in!—
And drown the flutter of first-breath;
And batter at the doors of Death.
To lull their dearest:—watch their dead;
While the long thunders overhead,
Gather and break for evermore,
Eternal tides—eternal War,
War—war—Bread—bread!
ALISON'S MOTHER TO THE BROOK
Brook, of the listening grass,
Brook of the sun-fleckt wings,
Brook of the same wild way and flickering spell!
Must you begone? Will you forever pass,
After so many years and dear to tell?—
Brook of all hoverings …
Brook that I kneel above;
Brook of my love.
Ah, but I have a charm to trouble you;
A spell that shall subdue
Your all-escaping heart, unheedful one
And unremembering!
Now, when I make my prayer
To your wild brightness there
That will but run and run,
O mindless Water!—
Hark,—now will I bring
A grace as wild,—my little yearling daughter,
My Alison.
Heed well that threat;
And tremble for your hill-born liberty
So bright to see!—
Your shadow-dappled way, unthwarted yet,
And the high hills whence all your dearness bubbled;—
You, never to possess!
For let her dip but once—O fair and fleet,—
Here in your shallows, yes,
Here in your silverness
Her two blithe feet,—
O Brook of mine, how shall your heart be troubled!
The heart, the bright unmothering heart of you,
That never knew.—
(O never, more than mine of long ago.
How could we know?—)
For who should guess
The shock and smiting of that perfectness?—
The lily-thrust of those ecstatic feet
Unpityingly sweet?—
Sweet beyond all the blurred blind dreams that grope
The upward paths of hope?
And who could guess
The dulcet holiness,
The lilt and gladness of those jocund feet,
Unpityingly sweet?
Ah, for your coolness that shall change and stir
With every glee of her!—
Under the fresh amaze
That drips and glistens from her wiles and ways;
When the endearing air
That everywhere
Must twine and fold and follow her, shall be
Rippled to ring on ring of melody,—
Music, like shadows from the joy of her,
Small starry Reveller!—
When from her triumphings,—
All frolic wings—
There soars beyond the glories of the height,
The laugh of her delight!
And it shall sound, until
Your heart stand still;
Shaken to human sight;
Struck through with tears and light;
One with the one desire
Unto that central Fire
Of Love the Sun, whence all we lighted are
Even from clod to star.