The Other Wise Man

A vale of tears, they said! A valley made of woes and fears, To be passed by with muffled head Quickly. I have not seen the tears, Unless they take the rain for tears, And certainly the place is wet. Rain laden leaves are ever licking Your cheeks and hands ... I can’t get on. There’s a toad-stool that wants picking. There, just there, a little up, What strange things to look upon With pink hood and orange cup! And there are acorns, yellow--green ... They said the King was at the end. They must have been Wrong. For here, here, I intend To search for him, for surely here Are all the wares of the old year, And all the beauty and bright prize, And all God’s colours meetly showed, Green for the grass, blue for the skies, Red for the rain upon the road; And anything you like for trees, But chiefly yellow brown and gold, Because the year is growing old And loves to paint her children these. I tried to follow ... but, what do you think? The mushrooms here are pink! And there’s old clover with black polls Black-headed clover, black as coals, And toad-stools, sleek as ink! And there are such heaps of little turns Off the road, wet with old rain: Each little vegetable lane Of moss and old decaying ferns, Beautiful in decay, Snatching a beauty from whatever may Be their lot, dark-red and luscious: till there pass’d Over the many-coloured earth a grey Film. It was evening coming down at last. And all things hid their faces, covering up Their peak or hood or bonnet or bright cup In greyness, and the beauty faded fast, With all the many-coloured coat of day. Then I looked up, and lo! the sunset sky Had taken the beauty from the autumn earth. Such colour, O such colour, could not die. The trees stood black against such revelry Of lemon-gold and purple and crimson dye. And even as the trees, so I Stood still and worshipped, though by evening’s birth I should have capped the hills and seen the King. The King? The King? I must be miles away from my journey’s end; The others must be now nearing The summit, glad. By now they wend Their way far, far, ahead, no doubt. I wonder if they’ve reached the end. If they have, I have not heard them shout.

1 December 1913