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?
Gray were the rushes
Beside the budless bushes,
Green-patched the pond.
The lark had left soaring
Though yet the sun was pouring
His gold here and beyond.
Bramble-branches held me,
But had they not compelled me
Yet had I lingered there
Hearing the frogs and then
Watching the water-hen
That stared back at my stare.
There amid the bushes
Were blackbird's nests and thrush's,
Soon to be hidden
In leaves on green leaves thickening,
In a great western wind we climbed the hill
And saw the clouds run up, ride high and sink;
And there were shadows running at our feet
Till it seemed the very earth could not be still,
Nor could our hearts be still, nor could we think
Our hearts could ever be still, our thought less fleet
Than the dizzy clouds, less than the flying wind.
Eastward the valley and the dark steep hill
And other hills and valleys lost behind
In mist and light. The hedges were not yet bare
Though the wind picked at them as he went by.
The woods were fire, a fire that dense or clear
Burned steady, but could not burn up the shadows
Rooted where the trees' roots entangled lie,
In darkness; or a flame burned solitary
The holy mountains,
The gay streams,
Heavy shadows,
And tall, trembling trees;
The light that sleeps
Between the heavy shadows,
Wind that creeps
Faintly, from far-off seas----
The mountains' light,
Waters' noise,
Trees' shadows,
Clear, slow, calm air,
Are dreams, dreams,
And far, far-fallen echoes
Of secret worlds
And inconceivable dark seas.
Door, you stand in your darkened frame
Mindful of your wooden might,
Flaunting relentlessly your claim
As guardian of sound and light.
Yet for all your vigil. Door,
Shadows that slip on panting feet
Over your threshold tinge the floor
With what was sunlight on the street.
And sounds fluttering in to die
(Door, you thought I should not know!)
Were started by an echo's cry
That was a voice not long ago.
I asked the watchful corners of a ceiling,
And the little darkened cracks the years scrawled there,
Why there are suns, and if there is a purpose
Behind this mask of life that people wear.
I asked some gnarled and patient shadows groping
Like wise hands of old blind men, on my wall ;
And everything I asked answered my question
With that one answer which does well for all.
You whom the shadows beckoned
Long and long ago,
Who taught me the flaming utterance
Of words, now strange and slow
On my lips that loved them
Long — Oh, long ago . . .
Why have you stirred the silence
That flowered from my pain?
Just now your anxious footstep
Sounded above the rain;
Just now your eyes, beseeching,
Shadowed my windowpane.
One shadow on my wall, an intimate
Of dusk, comes only when it comes alone.
It lifts out of new dark and spreads a great
Wing of quiet where once the sun has shone,
Cooling the air like rain on stone.
Such shadow might find entrance to a tomb.
And be at home in places where the dead
Are fitful sleepers; moving through the gloom
It might lay benediction on a head
That death has left uncomforted.
The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower--
the hypaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint--
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.
The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots--
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
There's nothing in the world that clings
As does a memory that stings;
While happy hours fade and pass,
Like shadows in a looking-glass.
I called you through the silent night
Across the brooding deep,
I sought you in the shadowland
From out the world — asleep;
No answer echoed to my call,
And now my way I thread
About the lowly mounds that rise
Among the silent dead.
Though voiceless, you will hear my call,
Your soul will heed my cry.
Will rise, and mock the prison where
Your bones recumbent lie.
Lovely wings of gold and green
Flit about the sounds I hear,
On my window when I lean
To the shadows cool and clear.
Roaming, I am listening still,
Bending, listening overlong,
In my soul a steadier will,
In my heart a newer song.