When I came home from wanderings
In a tall chattering ship,
I thought a hundred happy things,
Of people, places, and such things
As I came sailing home.
The tall ship moved how slowly on
With me and hundreds more,
That thought not then of wanderings,
But of unwhispered, longed-for things,
Familiar things of home.
For not in miles seemed other lands
Far off, but in long years
As we came near to England then;
Even the tall ship heard secret things
As she moved trembling home.
It was at dawn. The chattering ship
The tossing poplar in the wind
Shows underleaf of silver-white;
The roughness of the wind unkind
Torments her out of all delight.
But O that he were here
Whose blows and whose caresses alike were dear!
The great oak to the tearing blast
Stands steady with strong arms held wide,
So over him my anger passed,
When his rough usage hurt my pride.
But O that once again
I might arouse that passion, endure that pain!
One rainy winter dusk
Mending a parted cable,
Sudden I saw so clear
Home and the tea-table.
So clear it was, so sweet,
I did not start, but drew
The breath of deep content
Some minutes ere I knew
My Mother’s face that’s soother
Than autumn half-lights kind,
My softly smiling sisters
Who keep me still in mind,
Were but a dream, a vision--
That faded. And I knew
The smell of trench, trench-feeling--
And turned to work anew.
Beauty lies so deep
On all the fields,
Nothing for the eyes
But blessing yields.
Tall elms, greedy of light,
Stand tip-toe. See
The last light linger in
Their tracery.
The guns are dumb, are still
All evil noises.
The singing heart in peace
Softly rejoices,
Only unsatisfied
With Beauty’s hunger
And sacramental thirst--
Nothing of anger.
Only the wanderer
Knows England’s graces,
Or can anew see clear
Familiar faces.
And who loves joy as he
That dwells in shadows?
Do not forget me quite,
O Severn meadows.
Spring comes soon to Maisemore
And spring comes sweet,
With bird-songs and blue skies,
On gay dancing feet;
But she is such a shy lady
I fear we’ll never meet.
Yet some day round a corner
Where the hedge foams white,
I’ll find Spring sleeping
In the young-crescent night,
And seize her and make her
Yield all her delight.
But yon’s a glad story
That’s yet to be told.
Here’s grey winter’s bareness
And no-shadowed cold.
Though we are bound to earth by many ties,
And all along the roads whereby we came
A thousand tongues to listening hearts proclaim
Our kinship with the world that round us lies;
Though sunlit fields and woods and arching skies,
And flowers that break in shafts of living name,
Constrain with beauty all our quickened frame,
Breathing love's messages in sweetest guise;
Yet deeper than all rapture earth may bring
Is that fine sense whereby we are aware
Of something in ourselves that does not spring
From life without or in its fullness share,
But like a captive bird with quivering wing
Strains ever to its native, purer air.
I am monogramming
Seven dozen napkins,
With tablecloths to match,
For a bride.
Ninety-one times my needle shall trace
The leaf-like scrolls that interlace
Each other; up the padded side
Of the monogram my eye shall guide
For ninety-one days where the stitches run ;
And every day one more is done.
She is tall and fair,
She will be married
In June. ...
The linen is fine as satin is fine;
Its shining coolness flaunts design
Of death-white poppies, trailing ferns
I have known hours built like cities,
House on grey house, with streets between
That lead to straggling roads and trail off,
Forgotten in a field of green;
Hours made like mountains lifting
White crests out of the fog and rain,
And woven of forbidden music —
Hours eternal in their pain.
Life is a tapestry of hours
Forever mellowing in tone.
Where all things blend, even the longing
For hours I have never known.
If I listen shall I hear
Sounds that seem to hover near?
Speech of ship calling to ship
Through dark tides that twist and grip,
Dash of spray on a splintered coast,
The whisper-flutter of a host
Of sun-coloured butterflies
Wheeling under marbled skies;
The jabber of a little wind
Where the meadows' grass is thinned —
Or where trees forget their prides
To sway in unison like tides;
All the city's formal din;
All the hush where big streets thin
To little crooked lanes and lose
Themselves as the green distance blues
A ray of jonquils thrills the grey
And frowning winter of a room . . .
Out from the depths of an old day
A burst of spring-light cuts its way,
Lifting the vague perfume
Of walled-in gardens long, long dumb,
Of blooms that never bloomed at all . . .
Then quickly, as autumn's keen winds come.
Shadows, like dead leaves, fall.
I should have thought
in a dream you would have brought
some lovely, perilous thing,
orchids piled in a great sheath,
as who would say (in a dream)
I send you this,
who left the blue veins
of your throat unkissed.
Why was it that your hands
(that never took mine)
your hands that I could see
drift over the orchid heads
so carefully,
your hands, so fragile, sure to lift
so gently, the fragile flower stuff--
ah, ah, how was it