You came, but still, with heart full-given to gladness,
I paused, as one stands stricken ere he falls;
Not yet my fumblings swept their bounds, clogged sense its
Weakling walls.
Quaint spaceless musings held me—idiot Mind was
Gaped and gilled like a fish to suck through slow
Tentative pores swift sweetness of strange waters’
Ebb and flow.
Yet how could I praise in darkness?—Life, like a sodded
Seed, moved in drought-sleep and cleft its clay
Freshly it seemed, though each sap-season spired its
Stalks into day:
Till now (ah, deft magician!) your wand hovers
Over all Spirit—over those lost grey fields
Where one frail flower, with burning stem, glad, gradual
Petals yields;
And whose past pitiful bitter blooms live only
In the flushed mockery of remembering lovers.
RICHARD HUGHES
THE SINGING FURIES
The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun,
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.