The poor dead, lonely thing had not a shroud
From that still, frightful glare until a cloud
Of darkness, flowing like a dye
Over the edges of the sky,
Browned and put out the silent sun:
A benison
Of three hours' space.
And it had power
To put a shadow into that thing's face,
And th' invisible birds fell silent by its grace.
Thus Judas lay in shadow and all was still....
Then faint light, like water, began again to fill
The sky, and a whisper—came it from the grass,
Whispering dry and sparse,
Or from the air beyond the neighbouring hill?—
Ebbed, as a spirit on a sigh
Passing beyond alarm:
"It is finished!"
And there was calm
Under the empty tree and in the brightening sky.
Grayshott,
July, 1914.
FOUR SONGS FROM
"THE PRINCE OF
ORMUZ"
I.—THE PRINCE OF ORMUZ SINGS TO
BADOURA
When she kisses me with her lips, I become
A Roc, that giant, that fabulous bird
And over the desert, vast, yellow, and dumb,
I wheel, and my jubilant screaming is heard,
A voice, an echo, high up and glad,
Over the domes and green pools of Bagdad.