The Singing Man | Page 7

thou disown
Thy poor
keeper-of-the-light, for Light's sake alone.
_The dark had left no speech save hand-in-hand
Between us two the
while, with others near.
Mine questioned thine with 'Why should I be
here?'
'Yet bide thou here,' said thine, 'and understand.'_
_And mine was mute; but strove not then to go;
And hid itself, and
murmured, 'Do not hear
The listening in my heart!' Said thine, 'My
Dear,
I will not hear it, ever. But I know.'_
_Said mine to thine: 'Let be. Now will I go!--
For you are
saying,--you who do not speak,
This hand-in-hand is one day
cheek-to-cheek!'
And said thy hand around me, 'Even so.'_
_Then mine to thine.--'Yea, I have been alone;
--Yet happy.--This is
strange. This is not I!
You hold me, but you can not tell me why.'

And said thy hand to mine again, 'My Own.'_

THE PROPHET
All day long he kept the sheep:--
Far and early, from the crowd,
On
the hills from steep to steep,
Where the silence cried aloud;
And the
shadow of the cloud
Wrapt him in a noonday sleep.
Where he dipped the water's cool,
Filling boyish hands from thence,

Something breathed across the pool
Stir of sweet enlightenments;

And he drank, with thirsty sense,
Till his heart was brimmed and
full.
Still, the hovering Voice unshed,
And the Vision unbeheld,
And the
mute sky overhead,
And his longing, still withheld!
--Even when
the two tears welled,
Salt, upon that lonely bread.
Vaguely blessèd in the leaves,
Dim-companioned in the sun,
Eager
mornings, wistful eves,
Very hunger drew him on;
And To-morrow
ever shone
With the glow the sunset weaves.
Even so, to that young heart,
Words and hands, and Men were dear;

And the stir of lane and mart
After daylong vigil here.
Sunset
called, and he drew near,
Still to find his path apart.
When the Bell, with gentle tongue,
Called the herd-bells home again,

Through the purple shades he swung,
Down the mountain, through
the glen;
Towards the sound of fellow-men,--
Even from the light
that clung.
Dimly too, as cloud on cloud,
Came that silent flock of his:

Thronging whiteness, in a crowd,
After homing twos and threes;

With the thronging memories
Of all white things dreamed and
vowed.
Through the fragrances, alone,
By the sudden-silent brook,
From
the open world unknown,
To the close of speech and book;
There to

find the foreign look
In the faces of his own.
Sharing was beyond his skill;
Shyly yet, he made essay:
Sought to
dip, and share, and fill
Heart's-desire, from day to day.
But their
eyes, some foreign way,
Looked at him; and he was still.
Last, he reached his arms to sleep,
Where the Vision waited, dim,

Still beyond some deep-on-deep.
And the darkness folded him,

Eager heart and weary limb.--
All day long, he kept the sheep.
THE LONG LANE
All through the summer night, down the long lane in flower,
The moon-white lane,
All through the summer night,--dim as a
shower,
Glimmer and fade the Twain:
Over the cricket hosts, throbbing the
hour by hour,
Young voices bloom and wane.
Down the long lane they go, and past one window, pale
With visions silver-blurred;
Stirring the heart that waits,--the eyes
that fail
After a spring deferred.
Query, and hush, and Ah!--dim through a
moon-lit veil,
The same one word.
Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and
star-strewn air,

And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':--
All the wild bloom and reach of
dreams that never were,
--Never to be, now.
So, in the throbbing dark, where ebbs the old refrain,
A starved heart hears.
And silver-bright, and silver-blurred again
With moonlight and with tears.
All the long night they go, down the
long summer lane,
The long, long years.
_Ah but, Belovèd, men may do
All things to music;--march, and die;

And wear the longest vigil through,
... And say good-by.
All things to music!--Ah, but where
Peace
never falls upon the air;--
These city-ways of dark and din
Where
greed has shut and barred them in!
And thundering, swart against the
sky,
That whirlwind,--never to go by--
Of tracks and wheels, that
overhead
Beat back the senses with their roar
And menace of
undying war,--
War--war--for daily bread!_
_All things to silence! Ah, but where
Men dwell not, but must make a
lair;--
And Sorrow may not sit alone,
Nor Love hear music of its
own;
And Thought that strives to breast that sea
Must struggle even
for memory.
Day-long, night-long,--besieging din
To thrust all pain
the deeper in!--
And drown the flutter of first-breath;
And batter at
the doors of Death.
To lull their dearest:--watch their dead;
While
the long thunders overhead,
Gather and break for evermore,
Eternal
tides--eternal War,
War--war--Bread--bread!_
ALISON'S MOTHER TO THE BROOK
Brook, of the listening grass,
Brook of the sun-fleckt wings,
Brook

of the same wild way and flickering spell!
Must you begone? Will
you forever pass,
After so many years and dear to tell?--
Brook of
all hoverings ...
Brook that I kneel above;
Brook of my love.
Ah, but I have a charm to trouble you;
A spell that shall subdue

Your all-escaping heart, unheedful one
And unremembering!
Now,
when I make my prayer
To your wild brightness there
That will but
run and run,
O mindless Water!--
Hark,--now will I bring
A grace
as wild,--my little yearling daughter,
My Alison.
Heed well that threat;
And