Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Read online

  V

  If since eve drew in, I say,

  I have sat and brought

  (So to speak) my thought

  To bear on the woman away,

  Till I felt my hair turn grey –

  VI

  Till I seemed to have and hold,

  In the vacancy

  ’Twixt the wall and me,

  From the hair-plait’s chestnut gold

  [30] To the foot in its muslin fold –

  VII

  Have and hold, then and there,

  Her, from head to foot,

  Breathing and mute,

  Passive and yet aware,

  In the grasp of my steady stare –

  VIII

  Hold and have, there and then,

  All her body and soul

  That completes my whole,

  All that women add to men,

  [40] In the clutch of my steady ken –

  IX

  Having and holding, till

  I imprint her fast

  On the void at last

  As the sun does whom he will

  By the calotypist’s skill –

  X

  Then, – if my heart’s strength serve,

  And through all and each

  Of the veils I reach

  To her soul and never swerve,

  [50] Knitting an iron nerve –

  XI

  Command her soul to advance

  And inform the shape

  Which has made escape

  And before my countenance

  Answers me glance for glance –

  XII

  I, still with a gesture fit

  Of my hands that best

  Do my soul’s behest,

  Pointing the power from it,

  [60] While myself do steadfast sit –

  XIII

  Steadfast and still the same

  On my object bent,

  While the hands give vent

  To my ardour and my aim

  And break into very flame –

  XIV

  Then I reach, I must believe,

  Not her soul in vain,

  For to me again

  It reaches, and past retrieve

  [70] Is wound in the toils I weave;

  XV

  And must follow as I require,

  As befits a thrall,

  Bringing flesh and all,

  Essence and earth-attire,

  To the source of the tractile fire:

  XVI

  Till the house called hers, not mine,

  With a growing weight

  Seems to suffocate

  If she break not its leaden line

  [80] And escape from its close confine.

  XVII

  Out of doors into the night!

  On to the maze

  Of the wild wood-ways,

  Not turning to left nor right

  From the pathway, blind with sight –

  XVIII

  Making through rain and wind

  O’er the broken shrubs,

  ’Twixt the stems and stubs,

  With a still, composed, strong mind,

  [90] Nor a care for the world behind –

  XIX

  Swifter and still more swift,

  As the crowding peace

  Doth to joy increase

  In the wide blind eyes uplift

  Through the darkness and the drift!

  XX

  While I – to the shape, I too

  Feel my soul dilate

  Nor a whit abate,

  And relax not a gesture due,

  [100] As I see my belief come true.

  XXI

  For, there! have I drawn or no

  Life to that lip?

  Do my fingers dip

  In a flame which again they throw

  On the cheek that breaks a-glow?

  XXII

  Ha! was the hair so first?

  What, unfilleted,

  Made alive, and spread

  Through the void with a rich outburst,

  [110] Chestnut gold-interspersed?

  XXIII

  Like the doors of a casket-shrine,

  See, on either side,

  Her two arms divide

  Till the heart betwixt makes sign,

  Take me, for I am thine!

  XXIV

  ‘Now – now’ – the door is heard!

  Hark, the stairs! and near –

  Nearer – and here –

  ‘Now!’ and at call the third

  [120] She enters without a word.

  XXV

  On doth she march and on

  To the fancied shape;

  It is, past escape,

  Herself, now: the dream is done

  And the shadow and she are one.

  XXVI

  First I will pray. Do Thou

  That ownest the soul,

  Yet wilt grant control

  To another, nor disallow

  [130] For a time, restrain me now!

  XXVII

  I admonish me while I may,

  Not to squander guilt,

  Since require Thou wilt

  At my hand its price one day!

  What the price is, who can say?

  A Serenade at the Villa

  I

  That was I, you heard last night,

  When there rose no moon at all,

  Nor, to pierce the strained and tight

  Tent of heaven, a planet small:

  Life was dead and so was light.

  II

  Not a twinkle from the fly,

  Not a glimmer from the worm;

  When the crickets stopped their cry,

  When the owls forbore a term,

  [10] You heard music; that was I.

  III

  Earth turned in her sleep with pain,

  Sultrily suspired for proof:

  In at heaven and out again,

  Lightning! – where it broke the roof,

  Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

  IV

  What they could my words expressed,

  O my love, my all, my one!

  Singing helped the verses best,

  And when singing’s best was done,

  [20] To my lute I left the rest.

  V

  So wore night; the East was grey,

  White the broad-faced hemlock-flowers:

  There would be another day;

  Ere its first of heavy hours

  Found me, I had passed away.

  IV

  What became of all the hopes,

  Words and song and lute as well?

  Say, this struck you – ‘When life gropes

  Feebly for the path where fell

  [30] Light last on the evening slopes,

  VII

  ‘One friend in that path shall be,

  To secure my step from wrong;

  One to count night day for me,

  Patient through the watches long,

  Serving most with none to see.’

  VIII

  Never say – as something bodes –

  ‘So, the worst has yet a worse!

  When life halts ’neath double loads,

  Better the taskmaster’s curse

  [40] Than such music on the roads!

  IX

  ‘When no moon succeeds the sun,

  Nor can pierce the midnight’s tent

  Any star, the smallest one,

  While some drops, where lightning rent,

  Show the final storm begun –

  X

  ‘When the fire-fly bides its spot,

  When the garden-voices fail

  In the darkness thick and hot, –

  Shall another voice avail,

  [50] That shape be where these are not?

  XI

  ‘Has some plague a longer lease,

  Proffering its help uncouth?

  Can’t one even die in peace?

>   As one shuts one’s eyes on youth,

  Is that face the last one sees?’

  XII

  Oh how dark your villa was,

  Windows fast and obdurate!

  How the garden grudged me grass

  Where I stood – the iron gate

  [60] Ground its teeth to let me pass!

  ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’

  (See Edgar’s song in Lear)

  I

  My first thought was, he lied in every word,

  That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

  Askance to watch the working of his lie

  On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

  Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored

  Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

  II

  What else should he be set for, with his staff?

  What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare

  All travellers who might find him posted there,

  [10] And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh

  Would break, what crutch ’gin write my epitaph

  For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

  III

  If at his counsel I should turn aside

  Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

  Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

  I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

  Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

  So much as gladness that some end might be.

  IV

  For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,

  [20] What with my search drawn out through years, my hope

  Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

  With that obstreperous joy success would bring, –

  I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring

  My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

  V

  As when a sick man very near to death

  Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end

  The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,

  And hears one bid the other go, draw breath

  Freelier outside, (‘since all is o’er,’ he saith,

  [30] ‘And the blow fallen no grieving can amend’;)

  VI

  While some discuss if near the other graves

  Be room enough for this, and when a day

  Suits best for carrying the corpse away,

  With care about the banners, scarves and staves:

  And still the man hears all, and only craves

  He may not shame such tender love and stay.

  VII

  Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,

  Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ

  So many times among ‘The Band’ – to wit,

  [40] The knights who to the Dark Tower’s search addressed

  Their steps – that just to fail as they, seemed best,

  And all the doubt was now – should I be fit?

  VIII

  So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,

  That hateful cripple, out of his highway

  Into the path he pointed. All the day

  Had been a dreary one at best, and dim

  Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim

  Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

  IX

  For mark! no sooner was I fairly found

  [50] Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,

  Than, pausing to throw backward a last view

  O’er the safe road, ’twas gone; grey plain all round:

  Nothing but plain to the horizon’s bound.

  I might go on; naught else remained to do.

  X

  So, on I went. I think I never saw

  Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:

  For flowers – as well expect a cedar grove!

  But cockle, spurge, according to their law

  Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,

  [60] You’d think; a burr had been a treasure-trove.

  XI

  No! penury, inertness and grimace,

  In some strange sort, were the land’s portion. ‘See

  Or shut your eyes,’ said Nature peevishly,

  ‘It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:

  ’Tis the Last Judgement’s fire must cure this place,

  Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.’

  XII

  If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk

  Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents

  Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents

  [70] In the dock’s harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk

  All hope of greenness? ’tis a brute must walk

  Pashing their life out, with a brute’s intents.

  XIII

  As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair

  In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud

  Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.

  One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,

  Stood stupefied, however he came there:

  Thrust out past service from the devil’s stud!

  XIV

  Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,

  [80] With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,

  And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;

  Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;

  I never saw a brute I hated so;

  He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

  XV

  I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.

  As a man calls for wine before he fights,

  I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,

  Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.

  Think first, fight afterwards – the soldier’s art:

  [90] One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

  XVI

  Not it! I fancied Cuthbert’s reddening face

  Beneath its garniture of curly gold,

  Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold

  An arm in mine to fix me to the place,

  That way he used. Alas, one night’s disgrace!

  Out went my heart’s new fire and left it cold.

  XVII

  Giles then, the soul of honour – there he stands

  Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.

  What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.

  [100] Good – but the scene shifts – faugh! what hangman-hands

  Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands

  Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!

  XVIII

  Better this present than a past like that;

  Back therefore to my darkening path again!

  No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.

  Will the night send a howlet or a bat?

  I asked: when something on the dismal flat

  Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

  XIX

  [110] A sudden little river crossed my path

  As unexpected as a serpent comes.

  No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;

  This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath

  For the fiend’s glowing hoof – to see the wrath

  Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

  XX

  So petty yet so spiteful! All along,

  Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;

  Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit

  Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:

  The river which had done them all the wrong,

  [120] Whate’er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.

  XXI

  Which, while I forded, – good saints, how I feared

  To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek,

  Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek

  For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

  – It may have been a water-rat I
speared,

  But, ugh! it sounded like a baby’s shriek.

  XXII

  Glad was I when I reached the other bank.

  Now for a better country. Vain presage!

  Who were the stragglers, what war did they wage,

  [130] Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank

  Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,

  Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage –

  XXIII

  The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.

  What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?

  No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,

  None out of it. Mad brewage set to work

  Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk

  Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

  XXIV

  And more than that – a furlong on – why, there!

  [140] What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,

  Or brake, not wheel – that harrow fit to reel

  Men’s bodies out like silk? with all the air

  Of Tophet’s tool, on earth left unaware,

  Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

  XXV

  Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,

  Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth

  Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,

  Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood

  [150] Changes and off he goes!) within a rood –

  Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.

  XXVI

  Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,

  Now patches where some leanness of the soil’s

  Broke into moss or substances like boils;

  Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him

  Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim

  Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

  XXVII

  And just as far as ever from the end!

  Naught in the distance but the evening, naught

  To point my footstep further! At the thought,

  [160] A great black bird, Apollyon’s bosom-friend,

  Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned

  That brushed my cap – perchance the guide I sought.

  XXVIII

  For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,

  ’Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place

  All round to mountains – with such name to grace

  Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.

  How thus they had surprised me, – solve it, you!

  How to get from them was no clearer case.

  XXIX

  Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick

  [170] Of mischief happened to me, God knows when –

  In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,

  Progress this way. When, in the very nick

  Of giving up, one time more, came a click

  As when a trap shuts – you’re inside the den!

  XXX

  Burningly it came on me all at once,

  This was the place! those two hills on the right,