Do not fill up old wells -- Proverb. @3THOUGH you forget to love, Love is a living thing -- An ill unmeasured comes If you choke up the spring.@1 They sent me on a day To fill an ancient well: If there had been a house None now remained to tell. But all amid the grass I found a myrtle spray And a bitter scent of box Rose up along the way. A well -- without a sweep Nor was there left a curb; A warped plank lay across Half hid in struggling herb. Deep down the water gleamed A buried pane of blue That cracked athwart like glass At the first earth I threw. And the first earth I threw -- It had the grave-clod's sound And something seemed alive That cried far underground! But I began to sing My gloomy thoughts to save; The song became the croon Of one who digs a grave. I bent me to my task, I hurled the brown earth in -- But suddenly around There was a murmured din! I lifted up mine eyes, The heart within me sunk -- They all stood round about Who ever there had drunk! With asking looks they leaned, "Give us to drink -- we thirst!" And then I learned that he Who fills a well is cursed. They were -- and were not -- ay, They vanished as they came, As though the noon should drop Upon a candle-flame. @3Sweet, though -- you love no more, Do not quite close your heart, So that no place is mine, Lest Ghosts of Memory start.@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER THE WAR by RICHARD THOMAS LE GALLIENNE THE QUAKER GRAVEYARD by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL AMONG THE REDWOODS by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL SONGS OF TRAVEL: 46. EVENSONG by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THOSE WHO LOVE by SARA TEASDALE REMEMBRANCE by EGMONT HEGEL ARENS QUATORZAINS: 1. TO PERFUME by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: A DREAM by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |