A world that now is past all agony!
FOUNTAINS
"The graven fountain-masks suffer and weep.
Carved with a smile, the poor mouths clutch
At a half-remembered song,
Striving to forget the agony of ever laughing."
SACHEVERELL SITWELL.
Some fountains sing of love
In full and flute-like notes that charge the night
With all the red-mouthed essence of the rose;
Then turn to voices murmuring above,
Among the trees,
Of hidden sweet delight.
Another fountain flows
With the faint music of a first spring breeze;
Each falling drop is jewelled by the moon
To some fine luminous ecstasy of light.
It sings of noon,
Of sunlit blossoms on a first spring day
And all things sweet and pleasant to the sight.
Another fountain sings
Of the cool pleasures of those moonlit hours
When dappled sylvan things
Trample through thickets and through secret bowers
To prance and play,
Or, squatting round in rings,
To wreathe their horned heads with wan sweet flowers
Till dawn comes grey and sweeps them to the wood.
Another fountain sobs
Its song of passions that have passed away.
Then with a sound like threatening rolling drums, it throbs
And bursts into a flood
Of fierce wild music; and its savage spray
Becomes the blood
Renewed, of crimes long past.
Another fountain sings its song of fear,
Of rustics flying fast
Before some foe—
A deadly, unknown foe that comes so near
They feel his panting breath,
And run for many a lengthy, panic mile.
Those graven fountain-masks are white with woe!
Carved with a happy smile
They strive to weep...
End their eternal laughing—for awhile
To lose themselves in sleep
Or in the silver peacefulness of death.