Now rivers splendid
Now song attended
Throw ranks of music forward to the sea.
Now hills like vocal moons
Blow their prolonged bassoons
Forth where the Monarch swoons,
After long labour ended,
Swoons for his Lady—ah starry she!
From dim clouds wheeling
Song down comes stealing
Round flowers whose petals shaking
Silver of song are making;
Round the grand bronze of trees
Whose trumpets pealing
Peal through the sunset till
Flower, tree and cloud and hill
Fuse in the splendour of song that girdles the seas.
The Sun now is set—and now
Lips on her calm cool brow!
Now there is heaping
Of star-dust steeping
With deep and drowsy scents
Their bodies sleeping.
Quiet now, quiet,
Of golden instruments!
Now still, most shadowy still
Are cloud and hill;
Still, in this solemn hour
Lie cloud and flower;
Still, most shadowy still
Lie cloud and tree.
Now under tranquil skies,
Far, far the Monarch lies
Lone with his starry Lady—ah starry she!
WHEN THE GREAT ARM OF
A TREE BENDS STOOPING
When the great arm of a tree bends stooping
Across the dark road ...
Beware, beware!
Beware lest fingers searching, scooping
Snatch up your body by your hair,
Beware!
Think this no leafing clod,
Insensible clay!
Know you that through long ages in tense calm
This tree hath held its arm,
The instinct fingers nerved by most high God:
Until you knowing nought
Because of thick false thought,
You came, frail fool, treading a secure way.
When the great arm of a tree bends stooping
Across the dark road ...
Beware!
Beware lest fingers meet within your hair,
A stern arm clasp you round,
Bear you from the ground;
And you shall be held tight
Against a bloodless breast
Till human blood be pressed
From finger-nails and eyes,
And all the little cries
Your lips gave forth of old
Shall now no more arise
Where you hang cold,
Where you hang dry and stark
Against the granite dark,
Frozenly upright;
And deeper, deeper you
Shall thick leaves hide from view,
Your dead limbs shall be sunk
Down further through the trunk,
And all your veins shall wrap
Channels of flowing sap,
Your brain and lungs and blood
Shall be stiff wood,
Till you at last shall be
The cold heart of a tree.
Beware!
When the great arm of a tree bends stooping
Across the dark road....