We met upon nearby hill-tops of our lives
And shook the dust from us, revealing flame-laced clothes
And eyeing each other in the same moment.
You curved a longing to the wave of your arm:
A longing for dark rest crossed by unbidden gifts.
And my eyes deepened in answer....
Then we floated down to the valley between us:
The valley ringed with smooth honey-combs of sleep.
They have made me an airy apology
For the crude insistence of their flesh!
They have made me twist my tongue
Into fickle nonchalance!
With a languid impudence
I have tarried underneath the moon,
While the haggard reticence
Of their lives forgot itself within me!
Well, I am rebelling
At the men who make me
Their grimacing marionnette!
Let them find another dancing-teacher
For their dull, unruffled fears.
I am off to tear my black and white
Into shreds, within a valley
Where nakedness and colours do not need
I left the crowded cities,
With their knowledge and their folly,
And wandered down the by-ways,
So lonely, wild and free.
But not for me the mountain
With its peak of purple grandeur,
The forest, or the desert,
Or the great unresting sea.
For in a homely valley
The air was sweet with honey,
And there the brown Earth-Mother
Held a clover field for me.
Heigh-ho! Earth's sweet, red clover
And the warmth and kindly healing!
I laid me down and listened
To the bee's deep, drowsy runes,
Once I stood at the edge o' the world —
Were you ever there?
The sky came down to an opal sea,
Out there in space hung a dream-made ship
And the earth was only a narrow strip
Of sea-shells, ground by the wheels of Time.
No living things but my Love and I,
And one white bird that was sailing by —
But ah how foolish ! Why do I try
To tell it now . . . like a stifled cry!
My edge o' the world !
Back to day in the valley !
Small, green world, so sheltered and warm,
Fruit trees white where the brown bees swarm,
Gay little crowded gardens blow,
Gay little feet run to and fro—
O valley of waving broom,
O lovely, lovely light,
O heart of the world, red-gold!
Breast high in the blossom I stand;
It beats about me like waves
Of a magical, golden sea.
The barren heart of the world
Alive at the kiss of the sun,
The yellow mantle of Summer
Flung over a laughing land,
Warm with the warmth of her body,
Sweet with the kiss of her breath.
O valley of waving broom,
O lovely, lovely light,
O mystical marriage of Earth
With the passionate Summer sun!
In Cherry Valley the cherries blow:
The valley paths are white as snow.
And in their time with clusters red
The scented boughs are crimsoned.
Even now the moon is looking thro'
The glimmer of the honey dew.
A petal trembles to the grass,
The feet of fairies pass and pass.
By them, I know, all beauty comes
To me, a habitan of slums.
I sing no rune, I say no line:
The gift of second sight is mine!
Between the beechen hill and the green down
The valley pastures sink;
And the green river runs through their warm green
Northward into the sea.
Dark is the beechen hill these winter days,
The trees swallow the light
And make an evening there when morning shines
And the down heaves to the south.
Only when the sun's low a fire creeps through
The dark of the beechen hill;
While the green down, misty from head to foot,
Grows huge and dim with sleep.
Then in the valley by the yet shining river,
Under the noisy elms,
I know how like twin shadows over me
Rising high, east and west,
What do I care for morning,
For a shivering aspen tree,
For sun flowers and sumac
Opening greedily?
What do I care for morning,
For the glare of the rising sun,
For a sparrow’s noisy prating,
For another day begun?
Give me the beauty of evening,
The cool consummation of night,
And the moon like a love-sick lady,
Listless and wan and white.
Give me a little valley
Huddled beside a hill,
Like a monk in a monastery,
Safe and contented and still,
The Alps--
A mighty string of pearls
Which Day has laid aside--
Flaunt their alluring beauty
Upon the purple velvet of deep valleys,
Until night,
Stretching out black greedy fingers,
Steals them one by one.
Long after we have ceased to be
The sun will light in bush and tree
And shine unchanged ; the high turf hill
Shall stand up in beauty still ;
And all the valleys that we knew
Put on again the summer's hue,
When we are gone, when we are gone,
And are what green things feed upon.
The lingering light of the sun
Takes from the chalice of the valley
Its mist-perfume to wash the
Moon-face with rose.
In the pool at my feet the goldfishes drag their trains of brown
Which cleave it into parts that ceaselessly mingle anew.
The moon, silver bright
Through thousand streams sends her light
Into the valley aswoon, listening to the harmony of night.
Out of this oubliette between the mountains
five valleys go, five passes like gates;
three of them black in shadow, two of them bright
with distant sunshine;
and sunshine fills one high valley bed,
green grass shining, and little white houses
like quartz crystals,
little, but distinct a way off.
Why don't I go?
Why do I crawl about this pot, this oubliette,
stupidly?
Why don't I go?
But where?
If I come to a pine-wood, I can't say
Now I am arrived!
What are so many straight trees to me!