Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EARTH TRIUMPHANT, by CONRAD AIKEN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EARTH TRIUMPHANT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The warm sun covers earth again
Last Line: This may, as last may, brought him mirth.


THE warm sun covers earth again,
And the ivy leaves flash bright with rain,
They sparkle on the garden wall,
Drops, falling, sparkle as they fall;
And there among the dark leaves clings,
Scattering rain-drops with his wings,
A thrush, who having drunk of rain
Bubbles to sun a mirthful strain.
The trees all shake in youthful green,
The grasses shimmer cool and clean,
The meadow-brook sings sweet in flowing,
Dreamless of whither it be going,
And of all living things this day
Who shine with laughter in this May,
Not one, not one who can remember
The bitter blowings of December,
The boughs that creaked, the sod that froze,
The cold stars staring at cold snows.
O Earth, it were a pity then,
Could you not give this grace to men,
Could you not heal them of their sorrow,
Forgetting yesterday, to-morrow,
To live for always in to-day,
As these dumb happy things in May!
To sing the blessedness of sun
Nor sadden when its shine be done,
But only wait like these, and dream,
Or sleep, till April's rainy gleam, --
Through winter's times of snow and sleet,
When thickly round the forest's feet
Lie dead leaves, like old memories dead,
Dead griefs, and happinesses sped....
O Earth it were a pity then,
Could you not give this grace to men,
And make them from their sorrows rise
Like green things new beneath new skies!
Yet here is given the tale of one
Who took this healing of the sun,
And he, though true to earth, her child,
Has been by tongues of men reviled.

Through all his youth an anchorite
He peered at earth by candle-light,
And on a lamp-lit page would read
Of bygone time and ancient deed,
Closing the windows of his room
Lest modern sun should spoil his gloom
Or scare away his magic things,
His faerie visions, holy rings,
And tales in curious language writ,
Strange-charactered, by monkish wit;
And he had always through his youth
Gone devious sombre ways for truth,
Seeking for truth in star and moon
Rather than in the ruddy sun;
Walking abroad in night and mist,
Haply to catch the ghosts at tryst,
With elfin verses in his head
And words too holy to be said.
Ere his own life was yet begun
He had exhausted one by one
Each creed, each weird philosophy,
And reached at last satiety:
Till, wearied much of rhyming words
That sought to mimic song of birds,
He put his books upon their shelf
And went to hear the birds himself, --
Threw up his windows, let in sun,
And called philosophising done.

The sunshine on pale eyes was sweet,
The grass was soft beneath his feet;
Deeply he drank the blue of skies,
And touching earth grew subtly wise, --
Wiser than he had been before
When he beneath his lamp would pore
Over illumined manuscript, --
When frequently his fine pen dipt
To quill slow delicate characters
Upon the margin of a verse.
Beneath his window lilacs grew,
Among his books their perfume blew,
And musing by the window there
He watched them shake their lovely hair,
And watched a flock of sparrows sit
Among the leaves to dart and twit,
Filling the bush with bickerings
And shaking leaves with nervous wings.
He walked abroad in country lanes
Through summer winds, through autumn rains,
Loving the wind that laughed so wild,
Till he too brimmed with mirth, a child,
And sang out loud, -- surprised to hear
His own dead voice rise trembling clear
Among the sumach, sere and red,
With dead leaves loud beneath his tread.
And when he walked in city places
He looked with love on human faces,
And talked with those who sat by him
In the subway, swaying dim,
And smilingly with children spoke
And yearned, although too shy, to stroke
Their soft cheeks and their shining hair,
Or tell them stories strange and rare.
At night he sat in restaurants,
In gay bohemian poets' haunts,
Where poets came with languid locks,
And chorus-girls in gaudy frocks,
Where eyes were quick and wine was flowing
And love was made and money going,
While one man with a violin
Made quavering music, sweet and thin;
And after dinner he might walk
In brightly lighted streets, to talk
With girls whose mouths were very red,
Who held their bodies but as bread,
As broken bread, not more divine,
And no more precious blood than wine.
He sometimes thought, -- these might be his
Through all the night with ecstasies,
And he might stroke the subtle flesh,
Snared in an exquisite red mesh,
And hear the clock tick, all night through,
Alone there in the night, they two.
Warmly he shivered, thinking this,
His body warmed with creeping bliss;
But somehow, though he vaguely meant,
The instinct failed, he never went;
Content instead, in front-row seat,
To watch the intricate flash of feet
Of well-trained chorus-girls, who came
In lusty dance, to fill with shame
And ecstasy, -- O mingling sweet! --
His eyes, that watched the moving feet,
The legs of lustrous crimson silk,
White petticoats, skin white as milk;
While through his ears, a blandishment,
The implorings of the music went,
Persuasive horn, queer violin,
Dissolving him in bliss of sin . . .
Out of such febrile air he rose
To walk home through the slanting snows,
Breathing deep the cold night air
To make his body clean and fair;
Loving the flakes that touched, to melt,
His stubble cheek, so cool they felt,
And loving storm and loving wind,
They purged his body that had sinned:
Not sinned, perhaps -- but from his blood
They purged away this darker mood,
To leave his spirit cold and white
And shining, like a winter's night . . .
But most of all, when night was done,
He loved the ruddy morning sun,
Who shone so warm on his pale face;
Touched every wire and twig with grace,
And flamed on every icicle
Till drops of fire from each one fell!
O every day this gave him joy,
Brimmed him with music, like a boy.

So for a flight of magic days
In these ways and in other ways
The reawakened life in him
Woke tunings intricate with whim, --
Slow, subtle sequences of tone,
Bland horns, a drawling of trombone,
A tentative, perplexing din;
Whence softly rose a violin
To sing a moving phrase, and then
Was lost in jargonings again . . .
From this confusion, tangling sweet,
It needed but a single beat
Swiftly to draw and lead in one
Those subtle sequences of tone,
Out of the deeps each voice to bring
In slow grave symphony to sing,
Bidding it quicken, bidding it rise,
Or steadfast shine, like stars in skies,
Or cry out against all that is
To break its heart with ecstasies. . .

The lamp put lustre in her hair,
Soft reds and greens were mingled there,
Her eyes were fathomlessly dark
Save that remote in each a spark
He saw there, like a flying star
In vast voids where no others are;
Now shining fully like a moon,
Now scattering showers of splendor down,
Or dwindling off remote in space
Till scarcely yearning eyes could trace;
And he would almost hold his breath
Like one who peers, at gates of death,
Through infinite dark silences,
Where not a sound or presence is . . .
Waiting, waiting, for his breath
To come up shining through that death . . .
And all the while upon her knee
Her small hand lay so quietly,
As though it did not know she led
His soul so far among the dead;
Stroking, with a slow caress,
The soft knee and the silky dress,
The fingers hiding soft between
The lustrous little folds of green;
Or curling upward, shy and pale,
To touch a gleaming finger-nail.
Somehow, his stupid voice went on,
It must go on, in even tone;
Measuring careful syllables
While all his blood was deaf with bells;
And all his pulses hurried on,
Pattering towards a unison,
Like rain-drops on a window-pane
Making a single hum of rain.
Yet even talking he could note
Her smooth round neck, her mellow throat,
And all the soft shine in her face,
And all her body's breathing grace;
And then came tumult in his hands,
They longed to fly like burning brands,
Madly to whirl about and shatter
This idiotic endless chatter,
Go straight towards her, through it all,
Be plunged as in a waterfall,
And bring her coolness to his mouth,
All of her coolness for his drouth;
To slake his mouth and eyelids burning,
To sate with cool snows all his yearning,
To fill his spirit with her snow,
Have all her coolness in his glow.
Of her he had imperious need,
Without her, broken, he would bleed,
Forever languish incomplete,
A wingless thing, with wounded feet...
Aloof and strange the clock struck ten,
And whirred. She hoped he'd come again. --
Perhaps she'd walk with him some day? --
In wind and rain! -- Or see a play? --
And then the sweet night swallowed him,
He floated, giddily; and dim
In unperfected memory yet
He could not capture, nor forget,
An earth-sweet face, which like the spring
Made all his pulses glow and sing.

With her, fulfilment came, it seemed:
She was the beauty he had dreamed.
All beauty he had ever loved
Intensely in this woman moved,
And all his dead youth seemed to stir
Whenever he had glimpse of her:
The sunrise seen from long lost heights,
Forgotten valleys filled with lights,
The stars which he had loved when young,
The songs to him in childhood sung;
And flowers, so near and friendly then,
Seemed close and intimate again,
Just as they were when once he lay
In soft grass on a summer's day,
With daisy's petals by his cheek
So living that they seemed to speak,
And little clover, green and white,
Never so fragrant as at night;
While humming-birds with mazy wing
Made the trumpet-flowers swing,
And mulberries fell pattering down,
Whereto the ants came, black or brown,
He watched them by his small hand pass
In the green forests of the grass...
Now all these things seemed close as then;
Close were the faces, too, of men,
He noted lines that had escaped
His eyes before, and how were shaped
The lips, the nostrils, or the chin,
And if their hands were white and thin,
And all the movement that's in eyes,
And all the light that in them lies.
The very texture of the stone,
Beneath his feet, to him was known.
The leaves upon the lilac-tree,
So smooth, in essence were as she;
The wind that blew upon his face,
Shaking trees, had stolen her grace,
Some secret of her in it moved,
And lo, this wind he touched and loved,
Breathed deeply of this vagrant air
And welcomed it among his hair.

He would have dallied if he could
A long while with this joyous mood,
To muse, to talk of her, content,
While days and nights like music went:
Content in light of her to pass
His days, as, with the sunlight, grass.
For all the things of earth now seemed
Sweet as sweet faces that are dreamed,
And all with an inward glory bright
Which reached in her a perfect light...
But something, some dim restlessness,
Of which he scarce had consciousness,
The subtle impulse that in spring
Makes daisies grow and thrushes sing,
Left him discontent with this, --
To talk of her, forego her kiss.
And so he lay awake long hours,
Traced on the wall the patterned flowers,
And while the clock ticked, cold and slow,
Carefully backward would he go
In hushed mind over memories of her
To ask if she were friend or lover:
Sifting her lightest glance with eyes
So frightened they could not be wise, --
Weighing the lightest word she'd said
With held breath, heart that slowed with dread.
What meant these things? He did not know.
She must love one who loved her so!
And when at times he so construed
Some subtle tone of hers, or mood,
Then straightway flushed his brow with heat,
Loudly began his heart to beat,
Tumultuous all his pulses sang,
With little bells his temples rang;
And moist with fever he would rise
To stand at window, stare at skies,
While love seemed sudden to fill his throat
And all his room to rock and float...
Until across the sleeping town
Came elfin bell-notes coldly down,
Like voices falling faint and far
From frozen moon or haunted star,
And a white horror slid between
This lover and his earthly queen;
Even as frightened spirits run
When cock-crow shrills at reddening sun...

They climbed a wild hill, green with copse;
Giddily in the birch-tree tops
The red-winged blackbirds widely swayed
Joyful in sunshine, unafraid, --
Wonderful sky-things, balancing
So high, with hardly a stir of wing.
Beneath the hill a plain was spread,
In dusty green, with houses red,
And one small pond which towards the sky
Stared with a wide blue open eye.
Beyond all these the city lay,
Smoky, with roofs of serried grey,
And smoky trees, and smoky grass,
And one high dome that blazed like brass:
And chimneys tall and black, wherethrough
Glittered beyond the sea's wet blue,
O wonderful wild blue, drawn so fine
In that far clear horizon line! --
On this she looked with blowing hair,
By wind and sun made trebly fair;
So wonderful that he was weak,
His voice broke tremor when he would speak.
They sat and talked, of little things;
For him, with perilous balancings, --
Difficult breath and gasping words,
Words as fleeting and shy as birds.
She told his fortune, took his hand
Ingenuously, and deeply scanned
Across the palm the netting fine,
Intricate etchings of white line;
Puckered her puzzled brow, and frowned,
Before she told him what she found:
'If you should ever love, have fear!
Near death is written plainly here,
For her or you I cannot say;
Else, why should this line break this way? --'
She laughed. A black cloud drenched the sun
And suddenly all the earth grew dun...
They rose, returning. As they went
Vaguely, a cold presentiment
Slid snake-like through his mood of mirth;
And when the sun reconquered earth
Still through their laughter he could hear
'If you should ever love, have fear!'

To-night or next night should it be?
This phrase he mused incessantly;
Feeling that all life came to urge
This action; seeming to converge
With all the weight of earth and sky
And sun and stars and times gone by,
Until it was no longer he
But life, in all infinity,
That moved resistless to this aim;
Whatever end, not his the blame...
Meanwhile the rain-drops cooled his face,
He walked on with a quickened pace,
The wind shook trees and made them cry,
They tossed against a rapid sky,
Showing pale undersides of leaf,
Swishing and writhing, bacchic grief.
Omens! This violence and this dark
Troubled his soul and left a mark;
With lowered face he went his way,
Doubt shook him, all his mood was grey.
The door-bell rung, he stood in rain, --
In misery of doubt and pain;
Yet through an arc-light's fitful gloom
He saw forsythia trees in bloom,
Glowing and golden in the night,
So living and so filled with light...
These lit his heart. A moment's space,
He scarce had time to dream her face,
And the door opened, it was she,
Far lovelier than a dream could be;
He heard her speaking, touched her hand,
Briefly across her dark eyes scanned,
Feeling a soft sense, sweet and warm,
Of being alone with her in storm;
Then they with shy aloofness moved,
Lest each might think the other loved,
To sit and talk... While on the pane
Came gusty patterings of rain,
And they could hear the trees outside
That swished against the wind, and cried,
In bacchic frenzy, anguished bliss,
Against a stormy lover's kiss.
The clock upon the mantelpiece
Ticked on, it would not ever cease,
But in the intervals of quiet,
In momentary lull of riot,
Delicate, between word and word,
The little beat of it was heard;
Measuring life that flowed away,
The blood's alternate night and day,
And urging on, still urging on, --
To what? What final dusk or dawn?
And suddenly now it seemed a part
Of this vast tide that bore his heart
Dizzily to some dizzy height,
A part of all this rushing flight,
Its index of approaching time
When spent soul need no more to climb,
But blasted by a blazing sky
Must be transfigured or must die.
A breathlessness came over him,
His hands upon his knee seemed dim,
And nebulous his body seemed;
And with queer loudness, as if dreamed,
His voice went on, in empty chatter
Of weighty things that did not matter.
A breathlessness, a breathlessness,
Rushing him on, with no redress,
No pause, no pity, though he strove
And cried out to the tide that drove
His helpless spirit through this dark.
Wherein remotely shone a spark;
And all this darkness seemed to be
Her dark eyes' vast infinity,
Infinity of fear and doubt
Whence there was never coming out,
And no salvation, save he came
Through space and time to that far flame
Which when she smiled came up to him,
Making his body reel and swim.
The lamp put lustre in her hair,
Gleamed upon arms and shoulders bare;
One arm across a cushion lay,
So white, it made his spirit pray,
And in his hands a yearning came
To stroke that flesh as smooth as flame.
More than a little moment's space
He dared not look upon her face,
For swift her deep eyes drew him down
To darknesses where he would drown;
And yet they called him back again,
To look away from them was pain,
He felt their wonder taking him
And felt the world slip backward dim,
Her power was a magic one,
He went as white mist goes to sun.
Towards her mouth his spirit went
As for a single kiss 'twere meant,
Then darkness ever; yet his brain
Even in midst of all this pain
Somehow made shift to capture words,
Setting them free like frightened birds
That flashed all ways with startled winging,
Scattered, yet all in sunlight singing,
Singing the one thing, earthly bliss,
Half joy, half terror, before the kiss...
And after, when he'd kissed her eyes,
For these wild words they deemed him wise,
Saying, that they (O frightened wing!)
Had worked the wonder of this thing;
So wonderful, they sat quite still
While rain dripped at the window-sill,
Quiet as trees are, when the hour
Has come to them that gives them flower;
Quiet and shy as gentle earth
In dusk before the sun brings mirth;
Quiet as God, when he had made
These stars, and, seeing, was half afraid.
And they could hear the trees outside
That swished against the wind, and cried,
In maenad fury, anguished bliss,
Against a stormy lover's kiss;
And felt a soft sense, sweet and warm,
Of being alone, secure, in storm,
Too drunk with loveliness to speak,
Just touching lips, or brow, or cheek,
While through dark eyes their spirits went
On an eternal mission sent,
Quietly, holily, as they move
Who fear to break the hush of love.

The springtime of his life was this:
All earth seemed sweet to love and kiss,
The bark of trees, the blades of grass
Whereover softly he would pass,
The very bricks beneath his feet
Seemed, with kinship to her, sweet;
And he would stroke with lover's hand
All smooth things, -- seemed to understand
At last their beauty and their place,
Each seemed to lift a gentle face --.
And all the universe stood still
While out of love he drank his fill;
The roses blossomed for his sake;
For him from dark the sun would break,
The thrush sang on the lilac spray,
For him the night succeeded day;
His love for her, earth's love of sun,
Seemed mingling wonderfully in one. . .
And in this symphony of flame,
Like a dream his marriage came,
A minor voice, a silver laughter
Of little horns; and then rose after
The violins in rapid shine,
Intricate, myriad-voiced, divine,
Shimmering, and the music rose
To all the glory music knows, --
Magniloquent, a cosmic thing,
As though the universe should sing.
She was his life! If she should die,
Motionless would his body lie,
They breathed one single song of breath,
One life, and they die one death. . .
And if her face's shine went dim
That instant would it fade in him,
And all the mirth in them be dead
And all the light in them be shed:
O wistfully they talked of this,
Yet lost it in a trembling kiss. . .
So, pleasant hours and pleasant days
Went past them in a giddy maze,
And holding love they held the key,
He thought, to immortality. . .
And chancing shortly after then
To fall in with old friends again,
Who bore him off perforce to see
The latest musical comedy, --
To sink back in a front-row seat
And watch the intricate flash of feet
Of well-trained chorus-girls, who came
To give him ecstasy and shame, --
With legs of lustrous saffron silk,
White frills, and skin as white as milk,
With sexual laughter, nods and becks,
Mechanical display of sex, --
While through his ears, a blandishment,
The implorings of the music went:
Suddenly, all this powdered lust
Had filled him with a sad disgust, --
He looked on meretricious clothing
And straightway he was sick with loathing;
And while his friends perspired with bliss,
At thinking of a chorine's kiss,
Lo, beauty like a lightning came
To strike this ugliness with flame. . .
The man, he mused, who once knows love
No baser lust can ever move;
No, and no human face could lure
His heart again. . . His earth was sure.
Earth's irony! Though sure it seemed,
Lo, all its sureness was but dreamed.
Through brightest noon a darkness runs.
Night whelms down the hugest suns.
Death lodges him in sweetest flower,
And poison makes of sweetest hour.

His wife died sharp at ten o'clock,
That night. . . Yet time had felt no shock,
Nor paused, but still this clock went on
Which told them when her soul had gone.
She lay outstretched in candle-gloom, --
Save that, no whit was changed her room:
For still the tall glass glimmered there
Where night and day she did her hair,
And over a chair-back still hung down
Her soft pink satin dressing-gown.
And yet a quietness was there
Which seemed the breathing of despair;
And though the chamber showed no change,
Yet, there was something still and strange.
She lay outstretched, in candle-light;
So she would lie, nor stir, all night,
Not move one finger, no, nor seek
A single thing, nor try to speak.
He could not understand this thing.
Nothing, to which his mind might cling!
And never moving, by her side,
He sat and held her hand and cried,
And stroked her arms, so pale they were,
And tried to make her eyelids stir
By touching with his finger-tips,
Or brushing gently with his lips,
Or breathing on them. . . Yet her sleep
Had covered her so cold and deep,
That though a long, long while he gazed,
Hoping to see her eyelids raised, --
Quite close, until he touched her cheek;
And though at intervals he'd speak,
Though all her little names were said, --
Still she lay silent, like one dead. . .
At times, his grief was passionate
And he cried out, importunate;
And he would raise her from the bed
Hold in his arms her languid head,
And beg her to be kind to him,
While tears came and his eyes were dim;
And her sweet face, sweet piercingly,
He kissed and kissed, half angrily;
And panic madness took him, then,
Thinking, not many times again
He'd kiss her face, -- a little while;
A last time he had seen her smile, --
Only this morning, when they walked
Out in the garden, laughed and talked,
While she with pruning-scissors went,
Over her roses softly bent,
And clipped dead leaves. . . Have pity, God!
She would be hidden under sod,
Cramped in a dark and narrow place
With all that dirt above her face,
And never see the sun, the sky,
But there in soundless darkness lie
With not a soul to talk to her
While year by year she could not stir,
While rain came trickling downward cold
To damp her hair, and stain with mold
Her gentle face, her white shut eyes,
Her brow so beautiful and wise, --
Alone, and he would never see
This face again, not even he,
He, for whom it meant so much,
Who shook with anguish but to touch.
So, panic-struck he kissed her cheek
Imploring her once more to speak,
Only one little word to say
Before they hurried her away;
He would not let them! He would keep
Inviolate her quiet sleep,
Keep her in her own room here,
With shutters down, year after year,
Till some mysterious dawn would break
And she would wake, and she would wake!
They could not hide his love away!
But he would see her day by day,
Still have his lover by his side
Pretending that she had not . . . died,
And leave her little things all there
As she had left them; on her chair
Her dressing-gown where she had thrown, --
She'd need it when her sleep was flown.
It would not be so hard, if he
Could always steal in quietly
And have her face to look at there,
And touch the softness of her hair;
But if they hid her face from him,
His memory would fade and dim
Till he could scarce remember her,
Or cruel memory would err,
And there would be to touch and see
Nothing of all her sanctity,
Never upon this earth again;
O God have pity on this pain! --
And then the ballet dancers came
Before his mind, and utter shame
Shook him with sobs that he should be
In such a sordidness, while she
Caught at her breath, and cried for him
To see him ere her eyes went dim.
He told her he had come; but she
Lay there so white, so silently;
She must see! and in last despair,
To find if they might still be there,
He raised her eyelids, small and white,
And saw the brown eyes void of light, --
Unseeing, rigid, glazing fast;
And then he knew the truth at last;
And never moving, by her side,
He sat and held her hand and cried,
Yearning to kiss her, yet afraid
Of pain, -- if she no motion made, --
At finding out her death anew;
And yet he kissed her, all night through.

When he first ventured out, the earth Seemed strange to him, and stripped of
mirth,
A vast, a grey, an empty place,
Like a huge body without a face;
Or like a face that had no eyes,
Smooth flesh insensible to skies.
No soul in it! and he could feel
A horror, -- nausea made him reel.
He hated all these fleshly trees
Who sucked from death their ecstasies;
The soulless grass he hated too;
For with a million mouths it drew
Its fleshly substance from decay,
Its greenness was all made of grey.
The sun sprawled soulless in the street.
And so he turned with giddy feet
From this drear world, all empty now,
Over his musty desk to bow, --
Dull-eyed to take down many a book,
To open them with absent look,
Swallow a scrannel paragraph
And wretchedly, thereat, to laugh.

A loneliness, a loneliness,
An absence of all loveliness,
Like misty rain began to fall
Upon his heart; and very small
Through silent spaces, all alone,
Without the light of star or moon,
He travelled, and looked everywhere
As though a thing were hidden there. . .
To go where he, with her, had been,
To see the houses she had seen,
The streets she walked in, and had made
Her own, in sun or rain or shade:
This anguished him; in such a street
He half believed that he might meet, --
Last year it often happened so, --
Her coming, musingly and slow,
So soft in white, her dark eyes shining,
Pink roses on her straw hat twining;
She might come, sudden, round this turn!
And thinking this his heart would yearn,
And all his wretched pulses beat;
Until he saw the empty street,
The sidewalk stretching far away,
And nought else, save the light of day,
Or strangers, and the walls of stone
Which she had somehow made her own.
And many days had come and gone
Before one morning, just at dawn,
After a long and sleepless night
He looked out in the misty light
And saw her garden, tempest-blown,
Littered with dead leaves. . . Weeds had grown
Profusely in her favorite bed,
Rose petals on the loam were shed;
And seeing it neglected so,
This thing she loved. . . If she should know!
She must know! And remorse was his,
He broke the garden's sanctities,
Thinking of that last morning there
And how the sunshine glossed her hair, --
And how these petals, strewn in sun,
Were roses she had smiled upon,
Or touched . . . and how she loved them all,
And grieved, if one of them should fall.
These roses that were fully blown
To her as little buds were known,
Out of their hearts a fragrance came
Of her, and he was sick with shame
That all these days he should have left
Her in the garden here, bereft!
And often he would turn to see
If there behind him she might be,
So close she seemed; but all was bare,
A wind, a perfume in the air, --
And that was all. Yet when at last
Into the house he slowly passed,
His heart wrenched out of him, to go
Among the roses she loved so.
And when her robin ran through dew,
And so precisely as she knew
Sang out his early morning strain,
He thought he could not bear the pain.

A loneliness, a loneliness,
An absence of all loveliness,
Came down upon his heart like rain,
Insistent, gentle fall of pain,
With not a pause, and not a let,
No chance was given to forget;
But unresisting, as the leaf
Bends under rain, so he in grief,
And always would this rain have kept
To darken him, and would have wept
Had sun come wounding at his eyes,
The brazen laugh of brazen skies. . .
And faithlessness it would have been,
It would have seemed the blackest sin,
To let this grief be blown away
By the windy light of day; --
One way there was and one way only
Of truth to her: -- in being lonely;
In yearning for her day and night;
In feeling her as loss of light;
As silence coming coldly round,
As loss of music, loss of sound;
Though still vague echo in the air
Told that song was lately there. . .
And all day long from room to room
He wandered in the shuttered gloom,
Touching curtains, touching walls,
Startled at his own footfalls;
Or stood so still he'd hear the chime
Of clocks upstairs, yet feared to climb
Those stairs, lest having gone he'd find
Only the hush she'd left behind.
Her clock! and sudden anguish came
At thinking of the bitter shame
If he had let it stop, unwound;
Yet it was going still, he found,
Ticking on her mantelpiece;
He would not let it ever cease;
For all its impulse came from her,
Without her hands it would not stir,
But she had wound it, patiently,
The very day, perhaps, that she ...
He took the key with dim eyes then
And seemed to touch her hand again;
O God if for a second's space
She'd come and let him see her face,
While she was standing there that day
Musing, gazing far away,
And with slow hand revolved this key! ..
And then he realized that he
Was in her room, and then he cried,
For all was just as when she died; --
Over a chair-back hanging down
Her soft pink satin dressing-gown;
Drawn curtains, luminous with sun,
Two candles into sockets run;
And still untouched upon her bed
The pillow, hollowed by her head.
And this he stroked with finger-tips
And touched with never-sated lips;
Into this pillow and this sheet
Had passed her body's little heat,
And thence upon the air had gone
As darkness goes out upon dawn.
And then a while, a spirit dazed,
On all her little things he gazed,
Saw in the closet hanging there
Soft dresses that she used to wear,
Her hats, her ribbons, laces laid
In rows, some by her own hands made...
No one would ever change this room,
Forever would it stay in gloom,
Untouched ... and yet, since she liked sun,
Over the floor he let it run,
A singing, dancing flood of light,
Making the hazy ceiling bright,
And making all the room so gay
That he was hurt, and crept away,
Resolving not to come there more.
He stood a space: then locked the door,
And took the key with him, and went
Downstairs again to banishment.

A loneliness, a loneliness,
An absence of all loveliness,
It came like mingled snow and rain,
Softly, and yet a steady pain,
And mutely like the winter earth
In dumb forgetfulness of mirth
His heart lay still; and did not move,
So crushed with unforgotten love.
It was a stab of pain to go
To places that she did not know,
See houses she had never seen
In cities where she'd never been;
And though it was a pang to pass
Through streets she loved, or over grass
Whereon together they had strayed,
Yet he preferred this pang, -- afraid
To steal through streets that nothing kept
Of her who now forever slept.
And so, and always, back he came,
He burned, yet could not leave the flame;
Through streets that tortured him he stole,
Past houses, trees, that cut his soul;
And once, when happening to see
A place where they had taken tea,
He dared not face the endless pain
Of passing it, and so again
Went in, alone, for tea and cake,
Took just the things that she would take,
And stared at them, and went away
Leaving them, untouched, on the tray.
O, and how often if by chance
Some beauty held his absent glance,
Some beauty which he could not share
With her, -- sudden it seemed unfair,
That he should be alive to see
This loveliness, and yet, not she!
And so he turned his back, was driven
Back to her garden as to haven,
To touch her roses, care for them,
Pick scales away from leaf and stem,
And suffer endlessly the pang
When cheerfully her robin sang;
While else, upon his hungry ears,
Came only quiet, still as tears...
Lying awake sometimes it seemed,
When long and wakefully he dreamed
Nightmarish dreams, that he must spend
All of his life, without an end,
In going to see, however far,
All things she'd looked at, earth or star,
House and face and sea and steeple,
And comedies, and all the people
That she had ever seen in trains,
And all the hills and all the plains,
And all the sunsets in the sky
And all that she had seen go by,
Hear all the music she had heard,
Read all she'd read, each little word,
And walk on stones she'd walked upon,
And go on journeys she had gone,
Touch her leaf and touch her flower,
And day by day and hour by hour
Unravel all her life again,
Unknot each point with subtlest pain,
Minute by minute, till he had --
O God, till he was going mad!
And then he covered face, and cried
O God that she, not he, had died!

And yet, time passed, time somehow passed.
Into his old life he was cast,
Drew down his windows, shut out sun,
And took his books down one by one,
To read old tales of vanished times,
To while the hours with gentle rhymes,
And bury under word and word
The clock's tick so forever heard.
And each philosophy, each creed,
With eager glances he would read,
Hoping, at his journey's end,
That he would blissfully ascend
Into heavens filled with peace
Where all his weariness would cease,
Where gentle solace he would find
And patience that would lead him blind
Through all life's waste; or at the last,
When all the desert had been past,
To give him faith that he might meet
In death one who alive was sweet.
His grief now was a quiet thing,
Gentle, and not so quick to wing,
And now the silence of this place
Was home to him, and he could face
Her picture, even: pain dwelled there,
Yet it was pain that he could bear.
And now it was a sacred rite
Beside her picture, every night,
To set two candles, there to shine
All night, as if it were a shrine;
And always on his desk to keep,
Where dusty books were piled up deep,
Two roses in a little vase;
And often then his eyes he'd raise
To look, or stroke a petal's cheek,
Or listen, wishing they would speak...
And then go on with quickened eye
To read queer tales of times gone by,
Of magic mirrors, magic rings,
Wicked, elfin, holy things,
Of flying horses, talking birds,
All written down in dewy words,
And many things of ancient time
Told with musick and with rhyme.
And in this world of books again
Fainter grew the world of men,
And paler grew the light of sun;
And by wan light of star and moon,
That gentler was upon his eyes,
Coming from remoter skies,
He mused abroad and tried to find
The solace that's within the mind.
What was it? -- Often he read on
Till night was dusking into dawn,
Till the red sun swimming came
To turn the dew-drops into flame,
And all the roosters, crowing shrill,
Stirred the town, in twilight still,
Answering from wall to wall,
Waiting betwixt call and call;
Till upon the mantelpiece
Both the candles were but grease,
All their light gone, only grey.
Then he put his books away,
Weary, with a weight of grief,
Too tired to turn another leaf;
And making of his palm a cup
He picked the roses' petals up, --
Where they'd fallen on green baize,
Softly, underneath the vase, --
And climbed the silent stairs to bed,
Slowly, with a gentle tread,
Lest he make an echo stir,
And lest he wake the ghost of her...

In weariness, in weariness,
He found a balm for loneliness,
And all the summer, in the dim,
His dusty volumes wearied him,
They blurred his eyes and fogged his brain,
They gave him sleep to dull his pain;
And farther, farther from his ken
Receded that small world of men,
That world which strangely left behind
A whirling sunlight in his mind,
A world of color, shape, and sound,
Where grass grew thickly on the ground,
Where densely hung the leaves of green
With sparrows rustling in between...
While sun was here and sun was there
Putting life in branches bare,
And myriad rain-drops came in showers
Like lovers to the quiet flowers,
And robins all the sweeter thrilled
Because their throats with rain were filled,
And all earth was a lovely place
That worshipped at one shining face! --
A world of spring ... He looked out now,
The leaves were sallow on the bough,
Black boughs, where yellow leaves and red
Hung limp, while some, already shed,
Lay matted dankly on the earth
Blown down in midst of bacchic mirth;
And over all, the dark boughs through,
Sharply, the sky's autumnal blue ...
A little while, grey sky and snow ...
And of all this, what did she know?
Could she feel dead leaves settling down,
The scarlet maple, oak leaves brown?
These purple asters, did she see?
None who had loved them more than she!
And, strange, he longed to write to her,
To tell her how these earth-things were,
Tell how her roses blossomed so,
And robin left two weeks ago ...
How all the leaves on all the trees
Were holding bacchic mysteries,
Drinking some strange autumn breath
Of subtle air that gave them death:
Death most glorious ever seen
Living fire that burst from green
Consuming all the trees like song
And licking heaven with flaming tongue!
Then suddenly fell his bolt of shame:
To say, 'earth goes on, just the same! ...
Fierce autumn burns in every leaf ...'
He did sharp penance, then, of grief.

Sometimes his wound bled fresh again:
As one day, when in misty rain,
When rain was dripping from wet eaves
And weighing down the fevered leaves,
He walked, scarce conscious of the way,
Into the churchyard where she lay.
Almost a fortnight he'd let pass.
Now on the wet and fading grass,
Lay dead leaves in a yellow heap
As though they came with her to sleep, --
Soft maple leaves, and flaming yet,
So bright they were with being wet.
And everything was there so still,
So quiet the trees stood on the hill,
That there was not a sound, except
The little rain, that always kept
A pattering, a pattering,
On earth and leaves and everything.
It seemed all earth forbore to stir
So he might bend and speak to her,
Touch wet grass with finger-tips
And close to earth put down his lips,
And bring her hidden body near
So she might hear, so she might hear.
What did she think of, all this space?
And did this cold rain wet her face?
O God he longed to see her so!
Only an hour, so they might know
All griefs that each one grieved alone,
So pain might vanish, being known!
So he might say he loved her still,
And yet, at times, against his will,
Her sweet face vanished from his mind,
A fire blown out, nor could he find
For hours that white face anywhere;
If he could only touch her hair
With fingers, as he used to do,
So soft, when all alone, they two,
They sat at home on days like this, --
If he could only have one kiss
Of lips or cheek, or on her eyes, --
(Both eyes, for fear of jealousies) --
He'd know her loveliness again
And there'd be beauty in this pain.
What loneliness she must feel here!
And then he seemed to see her clear,
Her small face wonderfully at rest,
Her small hands folded on her breast,
So pallid, in her crimson laid,
Seeming to dream, so unafraid ...
And yet, this calm of hers was lie; --
For she had gone without good-bye,
Without their good-bye kiss, which they
Gave always, when they went away;
And he knew full well, thinking this,
Her heart had broken for that kiss, --
Having, without his touch, to go
Out on a dark she did not know ...
Why did she lie there now so still,
And he so close? -- Could not her will
Push earth and leaves and grass aside,
Could she not hear him if he cried? --
And then his whole heart burst with grief,
His hand was on a rainy leaf,
The wet grass pressed his mouth, while he
Sobbed her name, twice, quietly ...
Still there was not a sound, except
The little rain, that always kept
On earth, and leaves, and everything,
A pattering, a pattering.

Yet, though he often pulled the blind
To shut out sun, within his mind
Came back again that world of spring
Where earth in sunlight seemed to sing,
And green boughs moved against the sky,
With talking leaves, and birds flashed by;
And brooding on an ancient page,
Hushed waters of a frozen age,
Above those twilight waters came
This world like living sun of flame,
And all his grief began to seem,
Beside that freshness, like a dream.
It all came clear to him, and sweet;
He felt cool grass beneath his feet,
Was conscious of the moving earth,
Felt stirrings of her living mirth ...
And all his books seemed grey and dead
Like withered petals long time shed,
And all philosophy seemed dust
That whirled strange shapes for every gust;
Never would he discover there
A consolation for despair.
His clock struck nine, his clock struck ten;
And still he mused on this; and then
He felt within his soul ascend,
Quietly as a breath of wind
That blows in May through apple-bloom,
A cool light coming through the gloom;
And in his room there seemed to be
A fragrance, it was surely she,
For all his spirit seemed to float,
So easily, and from his throat
A pressure gave, and all his face
Seemed light with some celestial grace;
Across his brow her cool hands lay,
He seemed to hear her laugh, and say
That it was time, high time at last,
For grief to be forgot and past,
That he, philosophising done,
Must lift his face again to sun
And go where apple-blossoms blew
Like snows across the fields, wherethrough
The blue-birds, with their tawny breasts,
Glanced in sunlight to their nests.
For he must rise and live again,
And walk among the world of men,
Touch earth, and take her wind and rain
Gently to heal him of his pain ...
And then truth came, he seemed to rise
Released at last through quiet skies,
Through silver airs of heaven, whereon
Hung gentlest music of a dawn,
And all that music seemed to be
A praise of being high and free,
Of coming joy and going sorrow
Of going night and coming morrow;
And wings released at last for flight
Flashed whitely upward through the night...
Three petals, pink upon green baize,
He picked up underneath the vase,
And on the mantelpiece he turned
One candle that uneven burned;
And then looked outward through the night
And saw the autumn stars, so bright,
Shine downward through the branches dark,
Already leafless, drear and stark.
Alternate day and night a while,
And lo, once more in green would smile
Maple and sycamore and oak . . .
Then something little in him broke,
And all was plain: for she would be
Unhappy just as long as he,
And sad as long as he was sad;
But she would laugh, he being glad! . . .
Dawn came, new dawn. The moon went down.
Cocks crowed across the sleepy town;
Languid and faint the red sun came
And bathed the steeples in young flame;
And a white peace flowed wide between
This lover and his ghostly queen.

Go winter, and come quickly spring!
Robin, come north again and sing! --
Over the snowy earth he walked,
All nature smiled to him and talked,
And this remote blue winter sky
So unapproachable, so high,
Smiled friendly down, -- he thought it said
That past days were forever dead,
With cloud and dark, and now for earth
Quiet it shone, with candid mirth.
And all these birch trees, shaking bare
And silvery in the winter air,
Were conquering a forgotten grief,
Already dreaming of new leaf!
The sunset gleamed on ice and snow,
The western hills were all aglow,
And through the oaks the red sun dropped;
And then the bitter north wind stopped,
And underneath this ice and snow
He heard the small brook singing flow, --
As though in April's sun and shadow
It watered cowslips in a meadow.
The frosty night came cold and clear;
Yet in that stillness he could hear
Under the whiteness and the cold
Roots starting in the frozen mold . . .
And then he felt new life in him
Like flowers of red surge up and swim
Through all his blood; and all earth moved
With life of her whom he had loved,
Till she was earth and earth was she,
She was this snow, this brook, this tree . . .
And joy rose up in him, and song,
As buoyantly he walked along:
Go winter, and come quickly spring,
Robin, come north again and sing!

Spring in his soul so strong he felt
That when earth's snows began to melt
He deemed that it was earth and he
In subtly planned conspiracy;
For earth was she and she was earth,
She was his mistress and his mirth,
And she and he on pleasure bent
This sunlight and this joyance sent.
What joy this was! From sunny eaves
Drops sparkled down, and grass and leaves
Already through earth's snow appeared
Where earth by hazy sun was cleared;
And down the streets began to flow
Bright rivers from the dying snow,
Rapidly braiding streams that sung
Melodious spring, impetuous, young;
And icicles fell tinkling down
And earth came upward, steaming brown,
And wet snow from the roofs was slipping
And everywhere was ceaseless dripping,
Flash and patter and breathing ease,
Of stirring earth and stretching trees,
And pools of water, blue in sun.
Spring miracle once more begun! --
And walking under warm blue skies
Warming the eyelids on his eyes
He felt well what it was to be
A seed in all this revelry,
To feel the soil grow warm above,
And rain-drops stealing down like love!
But best of all was knowing this:
That all this was his lover's kiss,
His lover come, in guise of earth,
To justify, for all time, mirth!

So for a flight of magic days
In these ways and in other ways
The reawakened life in him
Woke tunings intricate with whim, --
Slow earthy sequences of tone,
Earth-horns, an under-earth trombone,
A tentative perplexing din;
Whence softly rose a violin
To sing an April phrase, and then
Was lost in jargonings again.
From this confusion, mingling sweet,
It needed but a single beat
Swiftly to draw and lead in one
Those subtle sequences of tone:
Out of the deeps each voice to bring
In waking symphony to sing,
Bidding it quicken, bidding it rise,
Steadfast to shine like stars in skies,
To cry out against all that is,
To shine, to shine with ecstasies,
Till all the stars grew dim thereby,
Its vast wings shadowed all the sky,
Its shadow fell on moon and sun
And sun and moon grew dull and dun,
And all the starry multitude
Were smitten into servitude,
And love's compulsion made them sing
'Our glory grace this marriage ring!'

The sun shot lustre through her hair,
The wind made golden havoc there,
A whirling whiteness was her dress;
O trebled was her loveliness
Upon these hills, beneath this blue,
These dusky cedars walking through!
Along the top of the world they walked
And laughed, and ran, and lightly talked;
The sunlight captured even their words
Making them flash as bright as birds,
Giving the heaviest phrases wing
And bidding simplest words to sing!
Yet, seeing the sunlight on her cheek,
It seemed as if he could not speak,
For all her body shone like wit,
Earth's wit, a grace so exquisite, --
Exquisite laughter, flashing wild, --
That he was tongue-tied, like a child.
O wonderful sunshine of this day,
O wonderful music of this May,
In her they reached their perfect song;
And as she walked so white along,
Whitely and joyously, as in sun
The wonderful sea-waves singing run,
He felt the earth dissolving dim
And slipping out from under him,
And dizzily, dizzily he was borne,
And stone and tree from him were torn, --
Nothing to cling to! -- Naught but air . . .
And then the sunshine on her hair,
Her shining eyes, her moving feet,
Her lips that talking moved so sweet,
Her young neck, and the hands she raised
To shade blue eyes from sun that blazed, --
These, in a world that reeled unsure,
Seemed stars to hold to, shone secure . . .
And unapproachable and high
She bent above him like the sky;
And yet, not unapproachable;
For tone and laughter seemed to tell
That though she moved so high and free
Yet she could lean to such as he,
And like the sunlit April skies
Shoot golden laughter through cold eyes . . .
Then through a world of flowering green
She seemed to lean, she seemed to lean,
The whole blue sky seemed bending down,
With swift warm winds about him blown,
He saw her eyes, he saw her cheek,
So close, and yet he could not speak,
But still bent backward, striving still
To meet and break all heaven's will,
To fight this splendor from his face,
To find a little foothold space,
To laugh; -- then earth began to swing,
Swiftly his hands flashed out to cling,
And, as it were for one kiss meant,
Towards her mouth his whole soul went,
And warmness and a stillness came
And all his heart was fused with flame.
Earth triumphant, and love declared!
All earth held breath, the lovers stared
Each in the other's laughing eyes,
While quiet music went through skies;
And a blackbird in a cedar swinging
Straight from their own one heart seemed singing . . .
So wonderful, they stood quite still
While soft sea-wind came up the hill,
Quiet as earth was when she lay
All breathless, waiting the kiss of day;
Quiet as God, when he had made
These stars, and, seeing, was half afraid.
Love was alive once more, and came
Out of the earth like uttered flame
In this sweet body, in this sweet face,
This exquisite, living, laughing grace.
And yet, old love, old faith, he deemed,
Stood firm; for now again it seemed
Her brightness broke from earth, and this
Was their reunion . . . In this kiss
Her soul came back to him again,
After long absence, bitter pain;
Her mouth, her eyes these seemed to be, --
Lo, re-embodied, this was she! --

Earth sang, and trembled; down went sun,
The dark poured out, the day was done . . .
So, in a year's time, triumphed earth, --
This May, as last May, brought him mirth.





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