10 Best Famous Merchants Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Merchants poems. This is a select list of the best famous Merchants poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Merchants poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of merchants poems.

• All Famous Merchants Poems

 I hid my heart in a nest of roses,
Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;
In a softer bed then the soft white snow's is,
Under the roses I hid my heart.
Why would it sleep not? why should it start,
When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?
What made sleep flutter his wings and part?
Only the song of a secret bird.

Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,
And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;
Lie still, for the wind on the warm seas dozes,
And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.
Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?
Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?
What bids the lips of thy sleep dispart?
Only the song of a secret bird.

The green land's name that a charm encloses, 
It never was writ in the traveller's chart,
And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,
It never was sold in the merchant's mart.
The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,
And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;
No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart,
Only the song of a secret bird.


ENVOI

In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love's truth or of light love's art,
Only the song of a secret bird.

 A poet's cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick--
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould [lang f]philosophique[lang e],
Or else she learn'd it of her master.
Sometimes ascending, debonair,
An apple-tree or lofty pear,
Lodg'd with convenience in the fork,
She watch'd the gardener at his work;
Sometimes her ease and solace sought
In an old empty wat'ring-pot;
There, wanting nothing save a fan
To seem some nymph in her sedan,
Apparell'd in exactest sort,
And ready to be borne to court.

But love of change, it seems, has place
Not only in our wiser race;
Cats also feel, as well as we,
That passion's force, and so did she.
Her climbing, she began to find,
Expos'd her too much to the wind,
And the old utensil of tin
Was cold and comfortless within:
She therefore wish'd instead of those
Some place of more serene repose,
Where neither cold might come, nor air
Too rudely wanton with her hair,
And sought it in the likeliest mode
Within her master's snug abode.

A drawer, it chanc'd, at bottom lin'd
With linen of the softest kind,
With such as merchants introduce
From India, for the ladies' use--
A drawer impending o'er the rest,
Half-open in the topmost chest,
Of depth enough, and none to spare,
Invited her to slumber there;
Puss with delight beyond expression
Survey'd the scene, and took possession.
Recumbent at her ease ere long,
And lull'd by her own humdrum song,
She left the cares of life behind,
And slept as she would sleep her last,
When in came, housewifely inclin'd
The chambermaid, and shut it fast;
By no malignity impell'd,
But all unconscious whom it held.

Awaken'd by the shock, cried Puss,
"Was ever cat attended thus!
The open drawer was left, I see,
Merely to prove a nest for me.
For soon as I was well compos'd,
Then came the maid, and it was clos'd.
How smooth these kerchiefs, and how sweet!
Oh, what a delicate retreat!
I will resign myself to rest
Till Sol, declining in the west,
Shall call to supper, when, no doubt,
Susan will come and let me out."

The evening came, the sun descended,
And puss remain'd still unattended.
The night roll'd tardily away
(With her indeed 'twas never day),
The sprightly morn her course renew'd,
The evening gray again ensued,
And puss came into mind no more
Than if entomb'd the day before.
With hunger pinch'd, and pinch'd for room,
She now presag'd approaching doom,
Nor slept a single wink, or purr'd,
Conscious of jeopardy incurr'd.

That night, by chance, the poet watching
Heard an inexplicable scratching;
His noble heart went pit-a-pat
And to himself he said, "What's that?"
He drew the curtain at his side,
And forth he peep'd, but nothing spied;
Yet, by his ear directed, guess'd
Something imprison'd in the chest,
And, doubtful what, with prudent care
Resolv'd it should continue there.
At length a voice which well he knew,
A long and melancholy mew,
Saluting his poetic ears,
Consol'd him, and dispell'd his fears:
He left his bed, he trod the floor,
He 'gan in haste the drawers explore,
The lowest first, and without stop
The rest in order to the top;
For 'tis a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In ev'ry cranny but the right.
Forth skipp'd the cat, not now replete
As erst with airy self-conceit,
Nor in her own fond apprehension
A theme for all the world's attention,
But modest, sober, cured of all
Her notions hyperbolical,
And wishing for a place of rest
Anything rather than a chest.
Then stepp'd the poet into bed,
With this reflection in his head:MORAL


Beware of too sublime a sense
Of your own worth and consequence.
The man who dreams himself so great,
And his importance of such weight,
That all around in all that's done
Must move and act for him alone,
Will learn in school of tribulation
The folly of his expectation.

 --New Orleans, November 1910

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I've worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in my best, hands covered with the lace gloves
you crocheted--no one needs a girl. How flat
the word sounds, and heavy. My purse thins.
I spend foolishly to make an appearance of quiet
industry, to mask the desperation that tightens
my throat. I sit watching--

though I pretend not to notice--the dark maids
ambling by with their white charges. Do I deceive
anyone? Were they to see my hands, brown
as your dear face, they'd know I'm not quite
what I pretend to be. I walk these streets
a white woman, or so I think, until I catch the eyes
of some stranger upon me, and I must lower mine,
a negress again. There are enough things here
to remind me who I am. Mules lumbering through
the crowded streets send me into reverie, their footfall
the sound of a pointer and chalk hitting the blackboard
at school, only louder. Then there are women, clicking
their tongues in conversation, carrying their loads
on their heads. Their husky voices, the wash pots
and irons of the laundresses call to me.

I thought not to do the work I once did, back bending
and domestic; my schooling a gift--even those half days
at picking time, listening to Miss J--. How
I'd come to know words, the recitations I practiced
to sound like her, lilting, my sentences curling up
or trailing off at the ends. I read my books until
I nearly broke their spines, and in the cotton field,
I repeated whole sections I'd learned by heart,
spelling each word in my head to make a picture
I could see, as well as a weight I could feel
in my mouth. So now, even as I write this
and think of you at home, Goodbye

is the waving map of your palm, is
a stone on my tongue.

 Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires which are
The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strained and lean,
The treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blackened jaws are seen
Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

The strong sea-lion of England's wars
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
To battle with the storm that mars
The stars of England's chivalry.

The brazen-throated clarion blows
Across the Pathan's reedy fen,
And the high steeps of Indian snows
Shake to the tread of armed men.

And many an Afghan chief, who lies
Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,
Clutches his sword in fierce surmise
When on the mountain-side he sees

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes
To tell how he hath heard afar
The measured roll of English drums
Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

For southern wind and east wind meet
Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire,
England with bare and bloody feet
Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

O lonely Himalayan height,
Grey pillar of the Indian sky,
Where saw'st thou last in clanging flight
Our winged dogs of Victory?

The almond-groves of Samarcand,
Bokhara, where red lilies blow,
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand
The grave white-turbaned merchants go:

And on from thence to Ispahan,
The gilded garden of the sun,
Whence the long dusty caravan
Brings cedar wood and vermilion;

And that dread city of Cabool
Set at the mountain's scarped feet,
Whose marble tanks are ever full
With water for the noonday heat:

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar
A little maid Circassian
Is led, a present from the Czar
Unto some old and bearded khan, -

Here have our wild war-eagles flown,
And flapped wide wings in fiery fight;
But the sad dove, that sits alone
In England - she hath no delight.

In vain the laughing girl will lean
To greet her love with love-lit eyes:
Down in some treacherous black ravine,
Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.

And many a moon and sun will see
The lingering wistful children wait
To climb upon their father's knee;
And in each house made desolate

Pale women who have lost their lord
Will kiss the relics of the slain -
Some tarnished epaulette - some sword -
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

For not in quiet English fields
Are these, our brothers, lain to rest,
Where we might deck their broken shields
With all the flowers the dead love best.

For some are by the Delhi walls,
And many in the Afghan land,
And many where the Ganges falls
Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie,
And others in the seas which are
The portals to the East, or by
The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep!
O silence of the sunless day!
O still ravine! O stormy deep!
Give up your prey! Give up your prey!

And thou whose wounds are never healed,
Whose weary race is never won,
O Cromwell's England! must thou yield
For every inch of ground a son?

Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head,
Change thy glad song to song of pain;
Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,
And will not yield them back again.

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore
Possess the flower of English land -
Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,
Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.

What profit now that we have bound
The whole round world with nets of gold,
If hidden in our heart is found
The care that groweth never old?

What profit that our galleys ride,
Pine-forest-like, on every main?
Ruin and wreck are at our side,
Grim warders of the House of Pain.

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?
Where is our English chivalry?
Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,
And sobbing waves their threnody.

O loved ones lying far away,
What word of love can dead lips send!
O wasted dust! O senseless clay!
Is this the end! is this the end!

Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead
To vex their solemn slumber so;
Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,
Up the steep road must England go,

Yet when this fiery web is spun,
Her watchmen shall descry from far
The young Republic like a sun
Rise from these crimson seas of war.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
 
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
 
Thou seemest human and divine,
   The highest, holiest manhood, thou.
   Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
 
Our little systems have their day;
   They have their day and cease to be:
   They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
 
We have but faith: we cannot know;
   For knowledge is of things we see
   And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
 
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
   But more of reverence in us dwell;
   That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
 
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
   We mock thee when we do not fear:
   But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
 
Forgive what seem'd my sin in me;
   What seem'd my worth since I began;
   For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
 
Forgive my grief for one removed,
   Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
   I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
 
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
   Confusions of a wasted youth;
   Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.
 
I
I held it truth, with him who sings
   To one clear harp in divers tones,
   That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
 
But who shall so forecast the years
   And find in loss a gain to match?
   Or reach a hand thro' time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
 
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
   Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
   Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,
 
Than that the victor Hours should scorn
   The long result of love, and boast,
   `Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.'
 
II
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
   That name the under-lying dead,
   Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
 
The seasons bring the flower again,
   And bring the firstling to the flock;
   And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
 
O, not for thee the glow, the bloom,
   Who changest not in any gale,
   Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:
 
And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
   Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
   I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee.
 
III
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
   O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
   O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
 
'The stars,' she whispers, `blindly run;
   A web is wov'n across the sky;
   From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun:
 
'And all the phantom, Nature, stands—
   With all the music in her tone,
   A hollow echo of my own,—
A hollow form with empty hands.'
 
And shall I take a thing so blind,
   Embrace her as my natural good;
   Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
 
IV
To Sleep I give my powers away;
   My will is bondsman to the dark;
   I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
 
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
   That thou should'st fail from thy desire,
   Who scarcely darest to inquire,
'What is it makes me beat so low?'
 
Something it is which thou hast lost,
   Some pleasure from thine early years.
   Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
 
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
   All night below the darken'd eyes;
   With morning wakes the will, and cries, 
'Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.'
 
V
I sometimes hold it half a sin
   To put in words the grief I feel;
   For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
 
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
   A use in measured language lies;
   The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
 
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
   Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
   But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
 
VI
One writes, that `Other friends remain,'
   That `Loss is common to the race'—
   And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
 
That loss is common would not make
   My own less bitter, rather more:
   Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
 
O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
   Who pledgest now thy gallant son;
   A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.
 
O mother, praying God will save
   Thy sailor,—while thy head is bow'd,
   His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.
 
Ye know no more than I who wrought
   At that last hour to please him well;
   Who mused on all I had to tell,
And something written, something thought;
 
Expecting still his advent home;
   And ever met him on his way
   With wishes, thinking, `here to-day,'
Or `here to-morrow will he come.'
 
O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
   That sittest ranging golden hair;
   And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waitest for thy love!
 
For now her father's chimney glows
   In expectation of a guest;
   And thinking `this will please him best,'
She takes a riband or a rose;
 
For he will see them on to-night;
   And with the thought her colour burns;
   And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;
 
And, even when she turn'd, the curse
   Had fallen, and her future Lord
   Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford,
Or kill'd in falling from his horse.
 
O what to her shall be the end?
   And what to me remains of good?
   To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.
 
VII
Dark house, by which once more I stand
   Here in the long unlovely street,
   Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
 
A hand that can be clasp'd no more—
   Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
   And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
 
He is not here; but far away
   The noise of life begins again,
   And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
 
VIII
A happy lover who has come
   To look on her that loves him well,
   Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell,
And learns her gone and far from home;
 
He saddens, all the magic light
   Dies off at once from bower and hall,
   And all the place is dark, and all
The chambers emptied of delight:
 
So find I every pleasant spot
   In which we two were wont to meet,
   The field, the chamber, and the street,
For all is dark where thou art not.
 
Yet as that other, wandering there
   In those deserted walks, may find
   A flower beat with rain and wind,
Which once she foster'd up with care;
 
So seems it in my deep regret,
   O my forsaken heart, with thee
   And this poor flower of poesy
Which little cared for fades not yet.
 
But since it pleased a vanish'd eye,
   I go to plant it on his tomb,
   That if it can it there may bloom,
Or, dying, there at least may die.
 
IX
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
   Sailest the placid ocean-plains
   With my lost Arthur's loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.
 
So draw him home to those that mourn
   In vain; a favourable speed
   Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead
Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn.
 
All night no ruder air perplex
   Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
   As our pure love, thro' early light
Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.
 
Sphere all your lights around, above;
   Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
   Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
My friend, the brother of my love;
 
My Arthur, whom I shall not see
   Till all my widow'd race be run;
   Dear as the mother to the son,
More than my brothers are to me.
 
X
I hear the noise about thy keel;
   I hear the bell struck in the night:
   I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.
 
Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife,
   And travell'd men from foreign lands;
   And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life.
 
So bring him; we have idle dreams:
   This look of quiet flatters thus
   Our home-bred fancies. O to us,
The fools of habit, sweeter seems
 
To rest beneath the clover sod,
   That takes the sunshine and the rains,
   Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God;
 
Than if with thee the roaring wells
   Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine;
   And hands so often clasp'd in mine,
Should toss with tangle and with shells.
 
XI
Calm is the morn without a sound,
   Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
   And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
 
Calm and deep peace on this high world,
   And on these dews that drench the furze,
   And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
 
Calm and still light on yon great plain
   That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
   And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
 
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
   These leaves that redden to the fall;
   And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
 
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
   And waves that sway themselves in rest,
   And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
 
XII
Lo, as a dove when up she springs
   To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe,
   Some dolorous message knit below
The wild pulsation of her wings;
 
Like her I go; I cannot stay;
   I leave this mortal ark behind,
   A weight of nerves without a mind,
And leave the cliffs, and haste away
 
O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large,
   And reach the glow of southern skies,
   And see the sails at distance rise,
And linger weeping on the marge,
 
And saying; `Comes he thus, my friend?
   Is this the end of all my care?'
   And circle moaning in the air:
'Is this the end? Is this the end?'
 
And forward dart again, and play
   About the prow, and back return
   To where the body sits, and learn
That I have been an hour away.
 
XIII
Tears of the widower, when he sees
   A late-lost form that sleep reveals,
   And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
Her place is empty, fall like these;
 
Which weep a loss for ever new,
   A void where heart on heart reposed;
   And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
 
Which weep the comrade of my choice,
   An awful thought, a life removed,
   The human-hearted man I loved,
A Spirit, not a breathing voice.
 
Come, Time, and teach me, many years,
   I do not suffer in a dream;
   For now so strange do these things seem,
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;
 
My fancies time to rise on wing,
   And glance about the approaching sails,
   As tho' they brought but merchants' bales,
And not the burthen that they bring.
 
XIV
If one should bring me this report,
   That thou hadst touch'd the land to-day,
   And I went down unto the quay,
And found thee lying in the port;
 
And standing, muffled round with woe,
   Should see thy passengers in rank
   Come stepping lightly down the plank,
And beckoning unto those they know;
 
And if along with these should come
   The man I held as half-divine;
   Should strike a sudden hand in mine,
And ask a thousand things of home;
 
And I should tell him all my pain,
   And how my life had droop'd of late,
   And he should sorrow o'er my state
And marvel what possess'd my brain;
 
And I perceived no touch of change,
   No hint of death in all his frame,
   But found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange.
 
XV
To-night the winds begin to rise
   And roar from yonder dropping day:
   The last red leaf is whirl'd away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
 
The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd,
   The cattle huddled on the lea;
   And wildly dash'd on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world:
 
And but for fancies, which aver
   That all thy motions gently pass
   Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I scarce could brook the strain and stir
 
That makes the barren branches loud;
   And but for fear it is not so,
   The wild unrest that lives in woe
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud
 
That rises upward always higher,
   And onward drags a labouring breast,
   And topples round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
 
XVI
What words are these have falle'n from me?
   Can calm despair and wild unrest
   Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?
 
Or cloth she only seem to take
   The touch of change in calm or storm;
   But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake
 
That holds the shadow of a lark
   Hung in the shadow of a heaven?
   Or has the shock, so harshly given,
Confused me like the unhappy bark
 
That strikes by night a craggy shelf,
   And staggers blindly ere she sink?
   And stunn'd me from my power to think
And all my knowledge of myself;
 
And made me that delirious man
   Whose fancy fuses old and new,
   And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan?
 
XVII
Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
   Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer
   Was as the whisper of an air
To breathe thee over lonely seas.
 
For I in spirit saw thee move
   Thro' circles of the bounding sky,
   Week after week: the days go by:
Come quick, thou bringest all I love.
 
Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam,
   My blessing, like a line of light,
   Is on the waters day and night,
And like a beacon guards thee home.
 
So may whatever tempest mars
   Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark;
   And balmy drops in summer dark
Slide from the bosom of the stars.
 
So kind an office hath been done,
   Such precious relics brought by thee;
   The dust of him I shall not see
Till all my widow'd race be run.
 
XVIII
'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand
   Where he in English earth is laid,
   And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
 
'Tis little; but it looks in truth
   As if the quiet bones were blest
   Among familiar names to rest
And in the places of his youth.
 
Come then, pure hands, and bear the head
   That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep,
   And come, whatever loves to weep,
And hear the ritual of the dead.
 
Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be,
   I, falling on his faithful heart,
   Would breathing thro' his lips impart
The life that almost dies in me;
 
That dies not, but endures with pain,
   And slowly forms the firmer mind,
   Treasuring the look it cannot find,
The words that are not heard again.
 
XIX
The Danube to the Severn gave
   The darken'd heart that beat no more;
   They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave.
 
There twice a day the Severn fills;
   The salt sea-water passes by,
   And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.
 
The Wye is hush'd nor moved along,
   And hush'd my deepest grief of all,
   When fill'd with tears that cannot fall,
I brim with sorrow drowning song.
 
The tide flows down, the wave again
   Is vocal in its wooded walls;
   My deeper anguish also falls,
And I can speak a little then.
 
XX
The lesser griefs that may be said,
   That breathe a thousand tender vows,
   Are but as servants in a house
Where lies the master newly dead;
 
Who speak their feeling as it is,
   And weep the fulness from the mind:
   `It will be hard,' they say, `to find
Another service such as this.'
 
My lighter moods are like to these,
   That out of words a comfort win;
   But there are other griefs within,
And tears that at their fountain freeze;
 
For by the hearth the children sit
   Cold in that atmosphere of Death,
   And scarce endure to draw the breath,
Or like to noiseless phantoms flit;
 
But open converse is there none,
   So much the vital spirits sink
   To see the vacant chair, and think,
'How good! how kind! and he is gone.'
 
XXI
I sing to him that rests below,
   And, since the grasses round me wave,
   I take the grasses of the grave,
And make them pipes whereon to blow.
 
The traveller hears me now and then,
   And sometimes harshly will he speak:
   `This fellow would make weakness weak,
And melt the waxen hearts of men.'
 
Another answers, `Let him be,
   He loves to make parade of pain
   That with his piping he may gain
The praise that comes to constancy.'
 
A third is wroth: `Is this an hour
   For private sorrow's barren song,
   When more and more the people throng
The chairs and thrones of civil power?
 
'A time to sicken and to swoon,
   When Science reaches forth her arms
   To feel from world to world, and charms
Her secret from the latest moon?'
 
Behold, ye speak an idle thing:
   Ye never knew the sacred dust:
   I do but sing because I must,
And pipe but as the linnets sing:
 
And one is glad; her note is gay,
   For now her little ones have ranged;
   And one is sad; her note is changed,
Because her brood is stol'n away.
 
XXII
The path by which we twain did go,
   Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
   Thro' four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
 
And we with singing cheer'd the way,
   And, crown'd with all the season lent,
   From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:
 
But where the path we walk'd began
   To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
   As we descended following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
 
Who broke our fair companionship,
   And spread his mantle dark and cold,
   And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dull'd the murmur on thy lip,
 
And bore thee where I could not see
   Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,
   And think, that somewhere in the waste
The Shadow sits and waits for me.
 
XXIII
Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
   Or breaking into song by fits,
   Alone, alone, to where he sits,
The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot,
 
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
   I wander, often falling lame,
   And looking back to whence I came,
Or on to where the pathway leads;
 
And crying, How changed from where it ran
   Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb;
   But all the lavish hills would hum
The murmur of a happy Pan:
 
When each by turns was guide to each,
   And Fancy light from Fancy caught,
   And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;
 
And all we met was fair and good,
   And all was good that Time could bring,
   And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood;
 
And many an old philosophy
   On Argive heights divinely sang,
   And round us all the thicket rang
To many a flute of Arcady.
 
XXIV
And was the day of my delight
   As pure and perfect as I say?
   The very source and fount of Day
Is dash'd with wandering isles of night.
 
If all was good and fair we met,
   This earth had been the Paradise
   It never look'd to human eyes
Since our first Sun arose and set.
 
And is it that the haze of grief
   Makes former gladness loom so great?
   The lowness of the present state,
That sets the past in this relief?
 
Or that the past will always win
   A glory from its being far;
   And orb into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein?
 
XXV
I know that this was Life,—the track
   Whereon with equal feet we fared;
   And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.
 
But this it was that made me move
   As light as carrier-birds in air;
   I loved the weight I had to bear,
Because it needed help of Love:
 
Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
   When mighty Love would cleave in twain
   The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.
 
XXVI
Still onward winds the dreary way;
   I with it; for I long to prove
   No lapse of moons can canker Love,
Whatever fickle tongues may say.
 
And if that eye which watches guilt
   And goodness, and hath power to see
   Within the green the moulder'd tree,
And towers fall'n as soon as built—
 
Oh, if indeed that eye foresee
   Or see (in Him is no before)
   In more of life true life no more
And Love the indifference to be,
 
Then might I find, ere yet the morn
   Breaks hither over Indian seas,
   That Shadow waiting with the keys,
To shroud me from my proper scorn.
 
XXVII
I envy not in any moods
   The captive void of noble rage,
   The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
 
I envy not the beast that takes
   His license in the field of time,
   Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
 
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
   The heart that never plighted troth
   But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
 
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
   I feel it, when I sorrow most;
   'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

 After Joseph Roth

Parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.
Montaigne, De L'amitië

The dream's forfeit was a night in jail
and now the slant light is crepuscular.
Papers or not, you are a foreigner
whose name is always difficult to spell.
You pack your one valise. You ring the bell.
Might it not be prudent to disappear
beneath that mauve-blue sky above the square
fronting your cosmopolitan hotel?
You know two short-cuts to the train station
which could get you there, on foot, in time.
The person who's apprised of your intention
and seems to be your traveling companion
is merely the detritus of a dream.
You cross the lobby and go out alone.

You crossed the lobby and went out alone
through the square, where two red-headed girls played
hopscotch on a chalk grid, now in the shade,
of a broad-leafed plane tree, now in the sun.
The lively, lovely, widowed afternoon
disarmed, uncoupled, shuffled and disarrayed
itself; despite itself, dismayed
you with your certainties, your visa, gone
from your breast-pocket, or perhaps expired.
At the reception desk, no one inquired
if you'd be returning. Now you wonder why.
When the stout conductor comes down the aisle
mustached, red-faced, at first jovial,
and asks for your passport, what will you say?

When they ask for your passport, will you say
that town's name they'd find unpronounceable
which resonates, when uttered, like a bell
in your mind's tower, as it did the day
you carried your green schoolbag down the gray
fog-cobbled street, past church, bakery, shul
past farm women setting up market stalls
it was so early. "I am on my way
to school in ." You were part of the town
now, not the furnished rooms you shared
with Mutti, since the others disappeared.
Your knees were red with cold; your itchy wool
socks had inched down, so you stooped to pull
them up, a student and a citizen.

You are a student and a citizen
of whatever state is transient.
You are no more or less the resident
of a hotel than you were of that town
whose borders were disputed and redrawn.
A prince conceded to a president.
Another language became relevant
to merchants on that street a child walked down
whom you remember, in the corridors
of cities you inhabit, polyglot
as the distinguished scholar you were not
to be. A slight accent sets you apart,
but it would mark you on that peddlers'-cart
street now. Which language, after all, is yours?

Which language, after all these streets, is yours,
and why are you here, waiting for a train?
You could have run a hot bath, read Montaigne.
But would footsteps beyond the bathroom door's
bolt have disturbed the nondescript interior's
familiarity, shadowed the plain
blue draperies? You reflect, you know no one
who would, of you, echo your author's
"Because it was he; because it was I,"
as a unique friendship's non sequitur.
No footsteps and no friend: that makes you free.
The train approaches, wreathed in smoke like fur
around the shoulders of a dowager
with no time for sentimentality.

With no time for sentimentality,
mulling a twice-postponed book-review,
you take an empty seat. Opposite you
a voluble immigrant family
is already unwrapping garlicky
sausages—an unshaven man and his two
red-eared sons.
You once wrote: it is true,
awful, and unimportant, finally
that if the opportunity occurs
some of the exiles become storm-troopers;
and you try, culpably, to project these three
into some torch-lit future, filtering out
their wrangling (one of your languages) about
the next canto in their short odyssey.

The next canto in your short odyssey
will open, you know this, in yet another
hotel room. They have become your mother
country: benevolent anonymity
of rough starched sheets, dim lamp, rickety
escritoire, one window. Your neighbors gather
up their crusts and rinds. Out of a leather
satchel, the man takes their frayed identity
cards, examines them. The sons watch, pale
and less talkative. A border, passport control,
draw near: rubber stamp or interrogation?
You hope the customs officer lunched well;
reflect on the recurrent implication
of the dream's forfeit. One night in jail?

 I

Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I give you credit, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

II

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice, where the merchants were the kings,
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

III

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by... what you call
... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival;
I was never out of England—it's as if I saw it all!

IV

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

V

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,— 
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?

VI

Well (and it was graceful of them) they'd break talk off and afford
—She, to bite her mask's black velvet, he to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

VII

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions—"Must we die?"
Those commiserating sevenths—"Life might last! we can but try!"

VIII

"Were you happy?"—"Yes."—"And are you still as happy?"—"Yes—and you?"
—"Then, more kisses!"—"Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?"
Hark—the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

IX

So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

X

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.

XI

But when I sit down to reason,—think to take my stand nor swerve
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music, till I creep thro' every nerve.

XII

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned— 
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned!
The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.

XIII

"Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction,—you'll not die, it cannot be!

XIV

"As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

XV

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

 1 Faster, faster, 
2 O Circe, Goddess,
3 Let the wild, thronging train 
4 The bright procession 
5 Of eddying forms, 
6 Sweep through my soul! 

7 Thou standest, smiling
8 Down on me! thy right arm,
9 Lean'd up against the column there,
10 Props thy soft cheek;
11 Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
12 The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
13 I held but now. 

14 Is it, then, evening 
15 So soon? I see, the night-dews, 
16 Cluster'd in thick beads, dim 
17 The agate brooch-stones 
18 On thy white shoulder; 
19 The cool night-wind, too, 
20 Blows through the portico, 
21 Stirs thy hair, Goddess, 
22 Waves thy white robe! 

Circe. 

23 Whence art thou, sleeper? 

The Youth. 

24 When the white dawn first 
25 Through the rough fir-planks 
26 Of my hut, by the chestnuts, 
27 Up at the valley-head, 
28 Came breaking, Goddess! 
29 I sprang up, I threw round me 
30 My dappled fawn-skin; 
31 Passing out, from the wet turf, 
32 Where they lay, by the hut door, 
33 I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, 
34 All drench'd in dew- 
35 Came swift down to join 
36 The rout early gather'd 
37 In the town, round the temple, 
38 Iacchus' white fane 
39 On yonder hill. 

40 Quick I pass'd, following 
41 The wood-cutters' cart-track 
42 Down the dark valley;-I saw 
43 On my left, through the beeches,
44 Thy palace, Goddess, 
45 Smokeless, empty! 
46 Trembling, I enter'd; beheld 
47 The court all silent, 
48 The lions sleeping, 
49 On the altar this bowl. 
50 I drank, Goddess! 
51 And sank down here, sleeping, 
52 On the steps of thy portico. 

Circe. 

53 Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou?
54 Thou lovest it, then, my wine?
55 Wouldst more of it? See, how glows,
56 Through the delicate, flush'd marble,
57 The red, creaming liquor,
58 Strown with dark seeds! 
59 Drink, thee! I chide thee not, 
60 Deny thee not my bowl. 
61 Come, stretch forth thy hand, thee-so! 
62 Drink-drink again! 

The Youth. 

63 Thanks, gracious one! 
64 Ah, the sweet fumes again! 
65 More soft, ah me, 
66 More subtle-winding 
67 Than Pan's flute-music! 
68 Faint-faint! Ah me, 
69 Again the sweet sleep! 

Circe. 

70 Hist! Thou-within there! 
71 Come forth, Ulysses! 
72 Art tired with hunting? 
73 While we range the woodland,
74 See what the day brings. 

Ulysses. 

75 Ever new magic! 
76 Hast thou then lured hither,
77 Wonderful Goddess, by thy art, 
78 The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, 
79 Iacchus' darling- 
80 Or some youth beloved of Pan, 
81 Of Pan and the Nymphs? 
82 That he sits, bending downward 
83 His white, delicate neck 
84 To the ivy-wreathed marge 
85 Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves
86 That crown his hair, 
87 Falling forward, mingling 
88 With the dark ivy-plants-- 
89 His fawn-skin, half untied, 
90 Smear'd with red wine-stains? Who is he, 
91 That he sits, overweigh'd 
92 By fumes of wine and sleep, 
93 So late, in thy portico? 
94 What youth, Goddess,-what guest 
95 Of Gods or mortals? 

Circe. 

96 Hist! he wakes!
97 I lured him not hither, Ulysses.
98 Nay, ask him! 

The Youth. 

99 Who speaks' Ah, who comes forth
100 To thy side, Goddess, from within?
101 How shall I name him?
102 This spare, dark-featured,
103 Quick-eyed stranger?
104 Ah, and I see too
105 His sailor's bonnet,
106 His short coat, travel-tarnish'd,
107 With one arm bare!--
108 Art thou not he, whom fame
109 This long time rumours
110 The favour'd guest of Circe, brought by the waves?
111 Art thou he, stranger?
112 The wise Ulysses,
113 Laertes' son? 

Ulysses. 

114 I am Ulysses. 
115 And thou, too, sleeper? 
116 Thy voice is sweet. 
117 It may be thou hast follow'd 
118 Through the islands some divine bard, 
119 By age taught many things, 
120 Age and the Muses; 
121 And heard him delighting 
122 The chiefs and people 
123 In the banquet, and learn'd his songs.
124 Of Gods and Heroes, 
125 Of war and arts, 
126 And peopled cities, 
127 Inland, or built 
128 By the gray sea.-If so, then hail! 
129 I honour and welcome thee. 

The Youth. 

130 The Gods are happy. 
131 They turn on all sides 
132 Their shining eyes, 
133 And see below them 
134 The earth and men. 

135 They see Tiresias 
136 Sitting, staff in hand, 
137 On the warm, grassy 
138 Asopus bank, 
139 His robe drawn over 
140 His old sightless head, 
141 Revolving inly 
142 The doom of Thebes. 

143 They see the Centaurs
144 In the upper glens
145 Of Pelion, in the streams,
146 Where red-berried ashes fringe
147 The clear-brown shallow pools,
148 With streaming flanks, and heads
149 Rear'd proudly, snuffing
150 The mountain wind. 

151 They see the Indian
152 Drifting, knife in hand,
153 His frail boat moor'd to
154 A floating isle thick-matted
155 With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants 
156 And the dark cucumber. 

157 He reaps, and stows them,
158 Drifting--drifting;--round him,
159 Round his green harvest-plot,
160 Flow the cool lake-waves,
161 The mountains ring them. 

162 They see the Scythian
163 On the wide stepp, unharnessing
164 His wheel'd house at noon.
165 He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal--
166 Mares' milk, and bread
167 Baked on the embers;--all around
168 The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd
169 With saffron and the yellow hollyhock
170 And flag-leaved iris-flowers.
171 Sitting in his cart
172 He makes his meal; before him, for long miles,
173 Alive with bright green lizards,
174 And the springing bustard-fowl,
175 The track, a straight black line,
176 Furrows the rich soil; here and there
177 Cluster of lonely mounds
178 Topp'd with rough-hewn,
179 Gray, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer
180 The sunny waste. 

181 They see the ferry
182 On the broad, clay-laden
183 Lone Chorasmian stream;--thereon,
184 With snort and strain,
185 Two horses, strongly swimming, tow
186 The ferry-boat, with woven ropes
187 To either bow
188 Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief
189 With shout and shaken spear,
190 Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern
191 The cowering merchants, in long robes,
192 Sit pale beside their wealth
193 Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,
194 Of gold and ivory,
195 Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,
196 Jasper and chalcedony,
197 And milk-barred onyx-stones.
198 The loaded boat swings groaning
199 In the yellow eddies;
200 The Gods behold him. 

201 They see the Heroes
202 Sitting in the dark ship
203 On the foamless, long-heaving
204 Violet sea.
205 At sunset nearing
206 The Happy Islands. 

207 These things, Ulysses,
208 The wise bards, also
209 Behold and sing.
210 But oh, what labour!
211 O prince, what pain!
212 They too can see
213 Tiresias;--but the Gods,
214 Who give them vision,
215 Added this law:
216 That they should bear too
217 His groping blindness,
218 His dark foreboding,
219 His scorn'd white hairs;
220 Bear Hera's anger
221 Through a life lengthen'd
222 To seven ages. 

223 They see the Centaurs
224 On Pelion:--then they feel,
225 They too, the maddening wine
226 Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain
227 They feel the biting spears
228 Of the grim Lapith?, and Theseus, drive,
229 Drive crashing through their bones; they feel
230 High on a jutting rock in the red stream
231 Alcmena's dreadful son
232 Ply his bow;--such a price
233 The Gods exact for song:
234 To become what we sing. 

235 They see the Indian
236 On his mountain lake; but squalls
237 Make their skiff reel, and worms
238 In the unkind spring have gnawn
239 Their melon-harvest to the heart.--They see
240 The Scythian: but long frosts
241 Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp,
242 Till they too fade like grass; they crawl
243 Like shadows forth in spring. 

244 They see the merchants
245 On the Oxus stream;--but care
246 Must visit first them too, and make them pale.
247 Whether, through whirling sand,
248 A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst
249 Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,
250 In the wall'd cities the way passes through,
251 Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,
252 On some great river's marge,
253 Mown them down, far from home. 

254 They see the Heroes
255 Near harbour;--but they share
256 Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,
257 Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;
258 Or where the echoing oars
259 Of Argo first
260 Startled the unknown sea. 

261 The old Silenus
262 Came, lolling in the sunshine,
263 From the dewy forest-coverts,
264 This way at noon.
265 Sitting by me, while his Fauns
266 Down at the water-side
267 Sprinkled and smoothed
268 His drooping garland,
269 He told me these things. 

270 But I, Ulysses,
271 Sitting on the warm steps,
272 Looking over the valley,
273 All day long, have seen,
274 Without pain, without labour,
275 Sometimes a wild-hair'd M?nad--
276 Sometimes a Faun with torches--
277 And sometimes, for a moment,
278 Passing through the dark stems
279 Flowing-robed, the beloved,
280 The desired, the divine,
281 Beloved Iacchus. 

282 Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars!
283 Ah, glimmering water,
284 Fitful earth-murmur,
285 Dreaming woods!
286 Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling Goddess,
287 And thou, proved, much enduring,
288 Wave-toss'd Wanderer!
289 Who can stand still?
290 Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me--
291 The cup again! 

292 Faster, faster,
293 O Circe, Goddess.
294 Let the wild, thronging train,
295 The bright procession
296 Of eddying forms,
297 Sweep through my soul!

 These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price. I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God's wonder, or His woe?

 We astronomers are nomads,
Merchants, circus people,
All the earth our tent.
We are industrious.
We breed enthusiasms,
Honour our responsibility to awe.


But the universe has moved a long way off.
Sometimes, I confess,
Starlight seems too sharp,


And like the moon
I bend my face to the ground,
To the small patch where each foot falls,


Before it falls,
And I forget to ask questions,
And only count things.