For all the beauty that escaped
This foolish brain, unsung, unshaped,
For wonder that was slow to move,
Forgive me, Death, forgive me, Love.
For love that kept a secret cruse,
For life defeated of its dues,
This latest word of all my breath —
Forgive me, Love, forgive me, Death.
BIRTHRIGHT
Lord Rameses of Egypt sighed
Because a summer evening passed;
And little Ariadne cried
That summer fancy fell at last
To dust; and young Verona died
When beauty’s hour was overcast.
Theirs was the bitterness we know
Because the clouds of hawthorn keep
So short a state, and kisses go
To tombs unfathomably deep,
While Rameses and Romeo
And little Ariadne sleep.
ANTAGONISTS
Green shoots, we break the morning earth
And flourish in the morning’s breath;
We leave the agony of birth
And soon are all midway to death.
While yet the summer of her year
Brings life her marvels, she can see
Far off the rising dust, and hear
The footfall of her enemy.
HOLINESS
If all the carts were painted gay,
And all the streets swept clean,
And all the children came to play
By hollyhocks, with green
Grasses to grow between,
If all the houses looked as though
Some heart were in their stones,
If all the people that we know
Were dressed in scarlet gowns,
With feathers in their crowns,
I think this gaiety would make
A spiritual land.
I think that holiness would take
This laughter by the hand,
Till both should understand.
THE CITY
A shining city, one
Happy in snow and sun,
And singing in the rain
A paradisal strain…
Here is a dream to keep,
O Builders, from your sleep.
O foolish Builders, wake,
Take your trowels, take
The poet’s dream, and build
The city song has willed,
That every stone may sing
And all your roads may ring
With happy wayfaring.
TO THE DEFILERS
Go, thieves, and take your riches, creep
To corners out of honest sight;
We shall not be so poor to keep
One thought of envy or despite.
But know that in sad surety when
Your sullen will betrays this earth
To sorrows of contagion, then
Beelzebub renews his birth.
When you defile the pleasant streams
And the wild bird’s abiding-place,
You massacre a million dreams
And cast your spittle in God’s face.
A CHRISTMAS NIGHT
Christ for a dream was given from the dead
To walk one Christmas night on earth again,
Among the snow, among the Christmas bells.
He heard the hymns that are his praise: Noël,
And Christ is Born, and Babe of Bethlehem.
He saw the travelling crowds happy for home,
The gathering and the welcome, and the set
Feast and the gifts, because he once was born,
Because he once was steward of a word.
And so he thought, “The spirit has been kind;
So well the peoples might have fallen from me,
My way of life being difficult and spare.
It is beautiful that a dream in Galilee
Should prosper so. They crucified me once,
And now my name is spoken through the world,
And bells are rung for me and candles burnt.
They might have crucified my dream who used
My body ill; they might have spat on me
Always as in one hour on Golgotha.” …
And the snow fell, and the last bell was still,
And the poor Christ again was with the dead.
INVOCATION
As pools beneath stone arches take
Darkly within their deeps again
Shapes of the flowing stone, and make
Stories anew of passing men,
So let the living thoughts that keep,
Morning and evening, in their kind,
Eternal change in height and deep,
Be mirrored in my happy mind.
Beat, world, upon this heart, be loud
Your marvel chanted in my blood,
Come forth, O sun, through cloud on cloud
To shine upon my stubborn mood.
Great hills that fold above the sea,
Ecstatic airs and sparkling skies,
Sing out your words to master me,
Make me immoderately wise.
IMMORTALITY
When other beauty governs other lips,
And snowdrops come to strange and happy springs,
When seas renewed bear yet unbuilded ships,
And alien hearts know all familiar things,
When frosty nights bring comrades to enjoy
Sweet hours at hearths where we no longer sit,
When Liverpool is one with dusty Troy,
And London famed as Attica for wit …
How shall it be with you, and you, and you,
How with us all who have gone greatly here
In