In the tired face of the mirror
There is a blue curtain reflected.
If I could lift the reflection,
Peer a little beyond, I would see
A boy crying
Because his sister is ill in another room
And he has no one to play with:
A boy listlessly scattering building blocks,
And crying,
Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana.
I cannot lift the curtain:
It is stiff and frozen.
You street of sorrows bending
Over your golden lamps in the evening;
Dark street that is very silent,
And everywhere the same:
Elsewhere there is song and riot,
Like golden fireflies flickering,
Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles
Tug the city up to the stars.
But who in the dawn should come near you?
There are dry leaves rattling behind him.
And who should come in the noonday?
There are shadows that squat on the pave.
And who should come in the evening?
There is one: a ship in dark waters.
And who should come at nightfall,
To feel cold hands at his heart?
When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops,
The trees are not the same.
I know they are not the same,
Because there is one tree that is missing,
And it stood so long by another,
That the other, feeling lonely,
Now is slowly dying too.
When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops
That dead tree comes back;
Like a great blue sphere of smoke
Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass,
Rustling through frayed branches,
Something eerily cheeping through it,
Something creeping through its shade.
By the old toy cabinet,
I stand and turn over dusty things:
Chessmen--card games--hoops and balls--
Toy rifles, helmets, swords,
In the far corner
A doll's tea-set in a box.
Where are you, golden child,
Who gave tea to your dolls and me?
The golden child is growing old,
Further than Rome or Babylon
From you have passed those foolish years.
She lives--she suffers--she forgets.
By the old toy cabinet,
I idly stand and awkwardly
Finger the lock of the tea-set box.
What matter--why should I look inside,
The house that I write of, faces the north:
No sun ever seeks
Its six white columns,
The nine great windows of its face.
It fronts foursquare the winds.
Under the penthouse of the veranda roof,
The upper northern rooms
Gloom outwards mournfully.
Staring Ionic capitals
Peer in them:
Owl-like faces.
On winter nights
The wind, sidling round the corner,
Shoots upwards
With laughter.
The windows rattle as if some one were in them wishing to get out
Cherry and pear are white,
Their snows lie sprinkled on the land like light
On darkness shed.
Far off and near
The orchards toss their crowns of delight,
And the sun casts down
Another shining crown.
The wind tears and throws down
Petal by petal the crown
Of cherry and pear till the earth is white,
And all the brightness is shed
In the orchards far off and near,
That tossed by the road and under the green hill;
And the wind is fled.
Far, far off the wind
Has shaken down
The fire burns low
Where it has burned ages ago,
Sinks and sighs
As it has done to a hundred eyes
Staring, staring
At the last cold smokeless glow.
Here men sat
Lonely and watched the golden grate
Turn at length black;
Heard the cooling iron crack:
Shadows, shadows,
Watching the shadows come and go.
And still the hiss
I hear, the soft fire's sob and kiss,
And still it burns
And the bright gold to crimson turns,
A winter sky of pale blue and pale gold,
Bare trees, a wind that made the wood-path cold,
And one slow-moving figure, gray and old.
We met where the soft path falls from the wood
Down to the village. As I came near she stood
And answered when I spoke, drawing the hood
Back from her face. I saw only her eyes,
Large and sad. I could not bear those eyes.
They were like new graves. I could not bear her eyes.
But what we said as each passed on is gone.
We looked and spoke and passed like strangers on,
I to the high wood, she towards the paling sun.
And there, where the clear-heavened small pool lies,
And the tallest beeches brush the bending skies,
In pool and tree I saw again her eyes.
I did not say, "Yes, we had better part
Since love is over or must be suppressed."
I did not say, "I'll hold you in my heart
Saint-like, and in the thought of your thought rest,
And pray for you and wish you happiness
In a better love than mine."
I was another man to another woman,
Tears falling or burnt dry were nothing then.
I struck your heart, I struck your mind; inhuman,
Future and past I stabbed and stabbed again,
Cursing the very thought of your happiness
In another love than mine:
--Then left you sick to death, and I like death.
It was a broken body bore me away--
A broken mind--poisoned by my own breath,
And love self-poisoned.... Was it but yesterday?
Your face has lost
The clearness it once wore,
And your brow smooth and white
Its look of light;
Your eyes that were
So careless, are how deep with care!
O, what has done
This cruelty to you?
Is it only Time makes strange
Your look with change,
Or something more
Than the worst pang Time ever bore?--
Regret, regret!
So bitter that it changes
Bright youth to madness,
Poisoning mere sadness ...
It covered all
The cold east wall,
Its green, thin gold, purple, brown,
And flame running up and down;
Lifting its quiet bosom to every wind that crept
Up the high wall and in its darkness slept.
Then when the wind slept all the creeper turned
To undiminishing fire that burned and burned and burned.
But one black night
(For not in the light
May such treacheries be done)
Came with dishonoured weapon one
And cut the stem just where the branches thin
Their million-leaf'd wild wandering begin:
Cut the firm stem quite through, and so it bled,
And all the million leaves shivered and hung there dead.
Here in the shade of the tree
The hours go by
Silent and swift,
Lightly as birds fly.
Then the deep clouds broaden and drift,
Or the cloudless darkness and the worn moon.
Waking, the dreamer knows he is old,
And the day that he dreamed was gone
Is gone.