I THINK that I am old. Silent I am with sorrow
At the beauteous sky that holds the new morrow.
I think that I am old. The lark sings words to me,
Who erst sung but Music. And in the ancient sea,
I can see old colours that I have seen elsewhere....
Purple orchids hurt me: and everything that’s fair—
Buttercups and distance and smoke, and people’s bodies.
O, I cannot get away from the places where my God is.
Laughter is a thing to strain and angle for,
My heart is quick and shrinking and pains me at its core.
I am older, older, than the Earth—O, I am old.
If I should be older, colder, than the stars, far off and cold?...
Once I danced and sang and capered on the grass
At the cool close of day, when shadows creep and pass.
When shadows link, and lengthen, and slowly become—nought.
Light flies, and shadow dies without its sustenance.
And stars shine out most silently, like jewels quietly wrought.
Not even then I ceased, nor paused upon my dance.
Now, I am struck and smitten with beauty’s poignancy.
Now, I am hurt with wonder, closed in from ecstasy.
No ecstasy is mine. I cannot get away.
Every way I turn—myself. By night, by day,
My face, my soul, my body, the people that I know—
Ah, no more free fashioning of worlds that gleam and go.
* * * * *
I have grown to be my own world, my world with heart and pain
And he that has found himself can be never lost again.
And he that is quite awake cannot dream his dreams again.
E. C. DICKINSON
(NON.-COLL.)
A TAVERN LILT
To W. W.
I DO not know more wonderful respite
Than to sit within the Inns of swinkèd lords
With a mate upon the left hand and the right
And tankards of good ale upon the boards.
My lads, the World for us when we’re in yoke—
To Hell and through to Heaven twice a day;
While Lancashire’s a splendid land for folk
Who’d woo a lass or taste a knuckled fray.
And when we’re free, with Freedom’s cap fast on,
How shall we bend new lives to jollity?
What songs our Will and Tom would you have won
Making the home-thatch rich for you and me?
Our Will, you’re young—the lathe you scorn to turn—
And sorrow life is not all Wigan Fair;
While I’d seek luck beside a gipsy’s burn
With a brace of whippets for a rabbits snare.
And you, Tom, you—what would you draw for prize?
A quickened pulse for the lass within your arms—
With her to walk i’ the lanes at the moon’s rise,
By the downland’s edge and over the sleeping farms.
My mates, you’re English and o’ the very best—
With no mean thought i’ the length or breadth o’ you:
Not Galahads, but yet to stand confessed
With finest hearts as ever heroes knew.