See how the speckled sky burns like a pigeon's throat,
Jewelled with embers of opal and peridote.
See the white river that flashes and scintillates,
Curved like a tusk from the mouth of the city-gates.
Hark, from the minaret, how the muezzin's call
Floats like a battle-flag over the city wall.
From trellised balconies, languid and luminous
Faces gleam, veiled in a splendour voluminous.
Leisurely elephants wind through the winding lanes,
Swinging their silver bells hung from their silver chains.
Round the high Char Minar sounds of gay cavalcades
Blend with the music of cymbals and serenades.
Over the city bridge Night comes majestical,
Borne like a queen to a sumptuous festival.
Oh for the rising moon
Over the roofs of Rome,
And swallows in the dusk
Circling a darkened dome!
Oh for the measured dawns
That pass with folded wings--
How can I let them go
With unremembered things?
I heard a wood thrush in the dusk
Twirl three notes and make a star--
My heart that walked with bitterness
Came back from very far.
Three shining notes were all he had,
And yet they made a starry call--
I caught life back against my breast
And kissed it, scars and all.
At six o'clock of an autumn dusk
With the sky in the west a rusty red,
The bells of the mission down in the valley
Cry out that the day is dead.
The first star pricks as sharp as steel--
Why am I suddenly so cold?
Three bells, each with a separate sound
Clang in the valley, wearily tolled.
Bells in Venice, bells at sea,
Bells in the valley heavy and slow--
There is no place over the crowded world
Where I can forget that the days go.
Oh, I could let the world go by,
Its loud new wonders and its wars,
But how will I give up the sky
When winter dusk is set with stars?
And I could let the cities go,
Their changing customs and their creeds,--
But oh, the summer rains that blow
In silver on the jewel-weeds!
When, in the gold October dusk, I saw you near to setting,
Arcturus, bringer of spring,
Lord of the summer nights, leaving us now in autumn,
Having no pity on our withering;
Oh then I knew at last that my own autumn was upon me,
I felt it in my blood,
Restless as dwindling streams that still remember
The music of their flood.
There in the thickening dark a wind-bent tree above me
Loosed its last leaves in flight--
I saw you sink and vanish, pitiless Arcturus,
You will not stay to share our lengthening night.
I saw above a sea of hills
A solitary planet shine,
And there was no one near or far
To keep the world from being mine.
Let all the towns remember you.
And tell it out with mellow tongue,
Down April yards at fall of dew —
That you were fair, that you were young.
A wind at dusk shaken to and fro
Against a melon-colored pane;
White flags in a brief, wistful row;
An only star after a rain.
But let this secret keep unsung;
Nor wise nor fool must it divine,
And tell it out with April tongue —
That all this loveliness was mine !
Heap slumber on your eyes;
Stop your mouth with dust
Be all that you were not,
As dead folk must.
Be all that you were not,
Unmindful, cold, apart—
The kiss you gave that dusk
Tears at your heart!
KINGS' wares; and dreams; and April dusks
Out in the golden dew,
One sighing in a secret lane;—
These wrought the look of you.
God made you out of lonely things;
To set you at our door,
He tumbled down into the dark
A hundred towns or more.
As I came down the Old York Road
Saint John's began to ring,
Across the Dead Folk in the grass,
The wide new dusk of spring.
Each window was a half-blown flower,
The pool beneath the hedge
Looked like a scrap of Tyrian gold
Dropped thinly in the sedge.
I think that never in the world
Blew there a tree so white
As the wild cherry by the wall,
So lonely to the sight.
As I came down the Old York Road
Not any soul was near,
Except two lovers going by
Within the fleet of year.
One star; the dusk; a scrap of rain.
A little sad, alone,
Out of the wet old gardens blown,
The scent of mint pricks at the pane.
And market carts go by,
Into a large, soft sky,
Of grey, of ochre, too;
Dully they go their way,
Past file of houses rainy grey,
A file of blue.
One spout is quick and sweet,
One broken and high ;
Their poignancies fill all the country street-
The ache of old regret,
Down the thin wet —
Into the large, soft sky,