Arthur Stringer

I am tired of the dust And the fever and noise And the meaningless faces of men; And I want to go home! Oh, day after day I get thinking of home Where the black firs fringe the skyline, And the birds wheel down the silence, And the hemlocks whisper peace, And the hill-winds cool the blood, And the dusk is crowned with glory, And the lone horizon softens, And the world's at home with God! Oh, I want to go there! I want to go home!

I caught the smell of ether From the glass-roofed room Where the hospital stood. Suddenly all about me I felt a mist of anguish And the old, old hour of dread When Death had shambled by.

Yellow with time it is, This letter on which I look; But up from it comes a perfume That stabs me still to the heart; And suddenly, at the odour, Through a ghost-like mist I know Rapture and love and wild regret When Life, and You, went by.

In the dead of the night You turned in your troubled sleep As you heard the wild swans pass; And then you slept again.

You slept-- While a new world swam beneath That army of eager wings, While plainland and slough and lake Lay wide to those outstretched throats, While the far lone Lights allured That phalanx of passionate breasts.

And I who had loved you more Than a homing bird loves flight,-- I watched with an ache for freedom, I rose with a need for life, Knowing that love had passed Into its unknown North!

I lounge on the deck of the river-steamer, Homeward bound with its load, Churning from headland to headland, Through moonlight and silence and dusk. And the decks are alive with laughter and music and singing, And I see the forms of the sleepers And the shadowy lovers that lean so close to the rail, And the romping children behind, And the dancers amidships. But high above us there in the gloom, Where the merriment breaks like a wave at his feet, Unseen of lover and dancer and me, Is the Pilot, impassive and stern, With his grim eyes watching the course.

Listen! Footsteps Are they, That falter through the gloom, That echo through the lonely chambers Of our house of life?

Listen! Did a door close? Did a whisper waken? Did a ghostly something Sigh across the dusk?

From the mournful silence Something, something went! Far down some shadowy passage Faintly closed a door-- And O how empty lies Our house of life!

You stood alone In the dusky window, Watching the racing river. Touched with a vague unrest, And if tired of loving too much More troubled at heart to find That the flame of love could wither And the wonder of love could pass, You kneeled at the window-ledge And stared through the black-topped maples Where an April robin fluted,-- Stared idly out At the flood-time sweep of the river, Silver and paling gold In the ghostly April twilight.

Shadowy there in the dusk You watched with shadowy eyes The racing, sad, unreasoning Hurrying torrent of silver Seeking its far-off sea. Faintly I heard you sigh, And faintly I heard the robin's flute, And faintly from rooms remote Came a broken murmur of voices. And life, for a breath, stood bathed In a wonder crowned with pain, And immortal the moment hung; And I know that the thought of you There at the shadowy window, And the matted black of the maples, And the sunset call of a bird, And the sad wide reaches of silver, Will house in my haunted heart Till the end of Time!

The pines shake and the winds wake, And the dark waves crowd the sky-line! The birds wheel out on a troubled sky; The widening road runs white and long, And the page is turned, And the world is tired!

So I want no more of twilight sloth, And I want no more of resting, And of all the earth I ask no more Than the green sea, the great sea, The long road, the white road, And a change of life to-day!

If I love you, woman of rose And warmth and wondering eyes, If it so fall out That you are the woman I choose, Oh, what is there left to say, And what should it matter to me, Or what can it mean to you? For under the two white breasts And the womb that makes you woman The call of the ages whispers And the countless ghosts awaken, And stronger than sighs and weeping The urge that makes us one, And older than hate or loving or shame This want that builds the world!