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Poems from Manuscripts Circa 1891 1898
I
My life is then a wasted ereme, My song but idle wind Because you merely find In all this woven wealth of rhyme Harsh figures with harsh music wound, The uncouth voice of gorgeous birds, A ruby carcanet of sound, A cloud of lovely words?
I am, you say, no magic rod, No cry oracular, No swart and ominous star, No Sinai thunder voicing God. I have no burden to my song, No smouldering word instinct with fire, No spell to chase triumphant wrong, No spirit-sweet desire.
Mine is not Byron’s lightning spear, Nor Wordsworth’s lucid strain Nor Shelley’s lyric pain, Nor Keats’, the poet without peer. I by the Indian waters vast Did glimpse the magic of the past, And on the oaten pipe I play Warped echoes of an earlier day.
II
My friend, when first my spirit woke, I trod the scented maze Of Fancy’s myriad ways,
Page – 41 I studied Nature like a book Men rack for meanings: yet I find No rubric in the scarlet rose, No moral in the murmuring wind, No message in the snows.
For me the daisy shines a star, The crocus flames a spire, A horn of golden fire, Narcissus glows a silver bar: Cowslips, the golden breath of God, I deem the poet’s heritage, And lilies silvering the sod Breathe fragrance from his page.
No herald of the sun am I But in a moonlit vale A russet nightingale Who pours sweet song, he knows not why, Who pours like wine a gurgling note Paining with sound his swarthy throat, Who pours sweet song he recks not why Nor hushes ever lest he die.
Ye weeping poplars by the shelvy slope From murmurous lawns downdropping to the stream On whom the dusk air like a sombre dream Broods and a twilight ignorant of hope, Say what compulsion drear has bid you seam Your mossy sides with drop on eloquent drop That in warm rillets from your eyes elope?
Page – 42 Is it for the too patient, sure decay Pale-gilded Autumn, aesthete of the years, A gorgeous death, a fading glory wears That thus along its tufted, downy way Creeps slothfully this ooze of amber tears, And thus with tearful gusts your branches sway Sighing a requiem to your emerald day?
Where is the man whom hope nor fear can move? Him the wise Gods approve. The man divine of motive pure and steadfast will Unbent to ill,
Whose way is plain nor swerves for power or gold The high, straight path to hold: — Him only wise the wise Gods deem, him pure of lust; Him only just.
Tho’ men give rubies, tho’ they bring a prize Sweeter than Helen’s eyes — Yea, costlier things than these things were, they shall not win That man to sin.
Tho’ the strong lords of earth his doom desire, He shall not heed their ire, Nor shall the numerous commons’ stormy voice compel His heart nor quell.
Tho’ Ocean all her purple pride unroll, It stirs, not shakes his soul. He sees the billows lift their cowled heads on high With undimmed eye.
Page – 43 Pure fields he sees and groves of calm delight; He turns into the night. Hell is before; the swords await him; friends betray; He holds his way.
He shall not fear tho’ heaven in lightnings fall Nor thunder’s furious call, Nor earthquake nor the sea: tho’ fire, tho’ flood assail, He shall not quail.
Tho’ God tear out the heavens like a page And break the hills for rage, Blot out the sun from being and all the great stars quench, He will not blench.
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