Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A HOUSEKEEPING, by ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A HOUSEKEEPING, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Surprised by young desire, as by the dawn
Last Line: How had he waked, and stretched his arms, and smiled!
Alternate Author Name(s): Q; Quiller-couch, A. T.
Subject(s): Fantasy; Forests; Goddesses & Gods; Mythology; Woods


SURPRISED by young desire, as by the dawn,
A young Orion, wildered, half awake,
Bedraggled, drenched in woodland ways withdrawn,
My heart, a-tiptoe by a dewy brake,
Spied the gods sleeping—vision of green lawn,
Pale ivory limbs, pillows of dappled fawn,
And a great quiet, and a stilly lake.

There the long grasses topped a banquet spread
—For that the turf had been their only table—
With cates and fruit and delicate white bread,
Roses a-float in craters carved with fable.
There droop'd a wreath from each relaxèd head,
And there on garland and on god were shed
The coverlet of years innumerable.

They perish not, beneath the secular oak—
Olympian Jove and all his greenwood train:
And yet no breath heaves any purple cloak;
Yet the thin leaves list at their lips in vain;
In vain the veils of morning, like a smoke,
Shake with the spiral lark. Be whist, invoke—
They perish not, yet cannot live again.

Anon upon that lake a shudder swept,
And therewithal a feeble childish wail;
And lo! a naked wingèd babe that stepped
Shoreward atween the weed and galingale,
And sought the whitest queen of all, and crept
Close to her side, and clapped her cheek, and wept,
And coaxed her ear with many an elfin tale.

'Mother, awake! The Western Wind arrives!
Down the long gulf he breaks a wavering stair
For Phœbus' gilded feet, and shoreward drives,
And sings across the meadows, debonair,
Pelting the Heaven with dust of golden hives,
Blown saffron bloom, and small birds with their wives,
And happiness in handfuls everywhere.

'Late as I couched high on the Latmian cliff,
I heard the red pine whisper wakefully;
I saw the pasturing brood-mare pause and sniff
The salt newcomer; and with mainsail free
A helmsman hailed me from his bobbing skiff—
"Praise the West Wind!" How shall I praise him, if,
If, Cytherea, he awake not thee?

'He may adorn the day; but ah! the dark—
The dark destroys me! When the shepherds fold
And hie them, each to his confederate spark,
His window lit, his beacon on the wold,
Then lie they warm. But me the house-dog's bark
Drives houseless, quaking through the midnight park:
All creatures love, but Love himself's a-cold!'

Thereat I stepped and gently him bespake—
'Dear child, my cottage hath an empty room,
A flask of thin wine and an oaten cake.
She, an she wake, will thank me—She, for whom
Kings left their loves, them blithely to betake
To war, the while that for her lovely sake
Wild War himself laid by his lance and plume.'

Then first he started back a little space;
But after came and laid a hand in mine,
As glad of one that spake his mother's praise.
So forth we fared: and happy our design,
Till thou cam'st fluttering through the forest ways,
Thou, with the woodland sunburn on thy face,
Thou, in green kirtle pinned with eglantine.

'Hillo!' criedst thou, 'what darling leadest there?
Come, pretty chuck!'—and heaped him kiss on kiss.
'An orphan? Save thee from thy mannish care!
Fond foundling, say, what do men know of this?'
'But he is mine,' said I; 'unless thou share—'
'If thou,' she falter'd, 'hast but room to spare—'
Fool, fool, fool heart! sub-letting so thy bliss!

Thenceforward for a month, as shines in Lent
The mead with daffodils, my cottage shone
With days and nights-made-noonday, being spent
In serving him that first had made us one.
And then, as droop in April's discontent
Those daffodils, thy will declined, and went
Forth from my door, leaving us twain alone.

Ah, had we never met—or, having met,
Had I been wiser or thy heart less wild!
For, wanting thee, at first he 'gan to fret,
And then to hunger as a weaning child:
And perished, wanting thee. And yet—and yet—
Hadst thou but turned or showed the least regret,
How had he waked, and stretched his arms, and smiled!





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