Lie still, for the wind on the warm seas dozes, And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art. Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart? Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred? What bids the lips of thy sleep dispart? Only the song of a secret bird. The green land's name that a charm encloses, It never was writ in the traveller's chart, And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is, It never was sold in the merchant's Alas, the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn, That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears, And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers. Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears; Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire, When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar, Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name! Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn! Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears! Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn, That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers, Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears! Hardly, to speak for summer one sweet word Of summer's self scarce heard. But higher the steep green sterile fields, thickset With flowerless hawthorn even to the upward verge Whence the woods gathering watch new cliffs emerge, Higher than their highest of crowns that sea-winds fret. Holds fast, for all that night or wind can say, Some pale pure color yet, Too dim for green and luminous for gray. Between the climbing inland cliffs above And these beneath that breast and break the bay, A barren peace too soft for hate or love Broods on an hour too dim for night or day. O wind, O wingless wind that walk'st the sea, Weak wind, wing-broken, wearier wind than we, Who are yet not spirit-broken, maimed like thee, Who wail not in our inward night as thou In the outer darkness now, What word has the old sea given thee for mine ear From thy faint lips to hear? For some word would she send me, knowing not how. Nay, what far other word Than ever of her was spoken, or of me Or all my winged white kinsfolk of the Wherewith the Athenian judgmentshrine was rent. For wrath that all their wrath was vainly spent, Their wrath for wrong made right The sinless matricide and unashamed? Yea, what new cry is this, what note more bright Than their song's wing of words was dark of flight, What word is this thou hast heard, Thine and not thine or theirs, O Night, what word More keen than lightning and more sweet than light? As all men's hearts grew godlike in one bird And all those hearts cried on thee, crying with might, Hear us, O mother Night! Blown by keen gusts of memory sad as thine Heap the weight up of pain, and break, and leave Strength scarce enough to grieve In the sick heavy spirit, unmanned with strife Of waves that beat at the tired lips of life. Nay, sad may be man's memory, sad may be The dream he weaves him as for shadow of thee, But scarce one breathing-space, one heartbeat long, Wilt thou take shadow of sadness on thy song. Not thou, being more than man or man's desire, Being bird and God in one, With throat of gold and spirit of the sun: The sun whom all our souls and songs call sire, Whose godhead gave thee, chosen of all our quire, Thee only of all that serve, of all that sing Before our sire and king, Borne up some space on time's worldwandering wing, This gift, this doom, to bear till time's wing tire Life everlasting of eternal fire. Thee only of all; yet can no memory say How many a night and day My heart has been as thy heart, and my life As thy life is, a sleepless hidden thing, Full of the thirst and hunger of winter and spring, That seeks its food not in such love or strife As fill men's hearts with passionate hours and rest. From no loved lips and on no loving Ah, ah, the doom (thou knowest whence rang that wail) Of the shrill nightingale! (From whose wild lips, thou knowest. that wail was thrown) For round about her have the great gods cast A wing-borne body, and clothed her close and fast With a sweet life that hath no part is moan. But me, for me (how hadst thou heart to hear?) [spear Remains a sundering with the two-edged With eyes, but not with song, too swift to swerve; Yet might not even thine eyes estranged estrange her, Who seeing thee too, but inly, burn and bleed Like that pale princess-priest of Priam's seed, For stranger service gave thee guerdon, stranger If this indeed be guerdon, this indeed That thou, being more than all we born, being higher Than all heads crowned of him that only gives The light whereby man lives, The bay that bids man moved of God's desire Lay hand on lute or lyre, Set lip to trumpet or deflowered green reed If this were given thee for a grace indeed, That thou, being first of all these, thou alone Shouldst have the grace to die not, but to live, |