Behold, as goblins dark of mien
And portly tyrants dyed with crime
Change, in the transformation scene,
At Christmas, in the pantomime,
Instanter, at the prompter's cough,
The fairy bonnets them, and they
Throw their abhorred carbuncles off
And blossom like the flowers in May.
— So mankind, to angelic eyes,
So, through the scenes of life below,
In life's ironical disguise,
A travesty of man, ye go:
But fear not: ere the curtain fall,
Death in the transformation scene
Steps forward from her pedestal,
Apparent, as the fairy Queen;
If faithful souls be alike glorified
As angels, then my fathers soul doth see,
And adds this even to full felicity,
That valiantly I hells wide mouth o'erstride:
But if our minds to these souls be descried
By circumstances, and by signs that be
Apparent in us, not immediately,
How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried?
They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn,
And vile blasphemous conjurers to call
On Jesus name, and Pharisaical
Dissemblers feigne devotion. Then turn,
O pensive soul, to God, for he knows best
Thy true grief, for he put it in my breast.
Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave,
Let me once know.
I sought thee in a secret cave,
And ask'd, if Peace were there,
A hollow wind did seem to answer, No:
Go seek elsewhere.
I did; and going did a rainbow note:
Surely, thought I,
This is the lace of Peace's coat:
I will search out the matter.
But while I looked the clouds immediately
Did break and scatter.
Then went I to a garden and did spy
A gallant flower,
The crown-imperial: Sure, said I,
Peace at the root must dwell.
Oh Sumptuous moment
Slower go
That I may gloat on thee --
'Twill never be the same to starve
Now I abundance see --
Which was to famish, then or now --
The difference of Day
Ask him unto the Gallows led --
With morning in the sky --
Too happy Time dissolves itself
And leaves no remnant by --
'Tis Anguish not a Feather hath
Or too much weight to fly --
'Twas here my summer paused
What ripeness after then
To other scene or other soul
My sentence had begun.
To winter to remove
With winter to abide
Go manacle your icicle
Against your Tropic Bride.
The Winters are so short --
I'm hardly justified
In sending all the Birds away --
And moving into Pod --
Myself -- for scarcely settled --
The Phoebes have begun --
And then -- it's time to strike my Tent --
And open House -- again --
It's mostly, interruptions --
My Summer -- is despoiled --
Because there was a Winter -- once --
And al the Cattle -- starved --
And so there was a Deluge --
And swept the World away --
But Ararat's a Legend -- now --
And no one credits Noah --
What will they do when I am gone? It is plain
That they will do without me as the rain
Can do without the flowers and the grass
That profit by it and must perish without.
I have but seen them in the loud street pass;
And I was naught to them. I turned about
To see them disappearing carelessly.
But what if I in them as they in me
Nourished what has great value and no price?
Almost I thought that rain thirsts for a draught
Which only in the blossom's chalice lies,
Until that one turned back and lightly laughed.
IT seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen--
Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall--that day
When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed
out
But still all equals in their rage of gladness
Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon
In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun
And once bore hops: and on that other day
When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower
Into an April morning, stirring and sweet
And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence.
A mightier charm than any in the Tower
Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard
Soldiers in line, young English countrymen,
Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums
THERE once the walls
Of the ruined cottage stood.
The periwinkle crawls
With flowers in its hair into the wood.
In flowerless hours
Never will the bank fail,
With everlasting flowers
On fragments of blue plates, to tell the tale.
THERE they stand, on their ends, the fifty faggots
That once were underwood of hazel and ash
In Jenny Pinks's Copse. Now, by the hedge
Close packed, they make a thicket fancy alone
Can creep through with the mouse and wren. Next
Spring
A blackbird or a robin will nest there,
Accustomed to them, thinking they will remain
Whatever is for ever to a bird:
This Spring it is too late; the swift has come.
'Twas a hot day for carrying them up:
Better they will never warm me, though they must
Light several Winters' fires. Before they are done
The war will have ended, many other things
Have ended, maybe, that I can no more
Foresee or more control than robin and wren.
My sweet little girl should be cheerful and mild
She must not be fretful and cry!
Oh! why is this passion? remember, my child,
GOD sees you, who lives in the sky.
That dear little face, that I like so to kiss,
How alter'd and sad it appears!
Do you think I can love you so naughty as this,
Or kiss you, all wetted with tears?
Remember, though GOD is in Heaven, my love,
He sees you within and without,
And always looks down, from His glory above,
To notice what you are about.
If I am not with you, or if it be dark,
And nobody is in the way,
His eye is as able your doings to mark,
In the night as it is in the day.