Xii

SOME starlit garden grey with dew, Some chamber flushed with wine and fire, What matters where, so I and you Are worthy our desire?

Behind, a past that scolds and jeers For ungirt loins and lamps unlit; In front, the unmanageable years, The trap upon the Pit;

Think on the shame of dreams for deeds, The scandal of unnatural strife, The slur upon immortal needs, The treason done to life:

Arise! no more a living lie, And with me quicken and control Some memory that shall magnify The universal Soul.

XIII To James McNeill Whistler

UNDER a stagnant sky, Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom, The River, jaded and forlorn, Welters and wanders wearily—wretchedly—on; Yet in and out among the ribs Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls, Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, Lingers to babble to a broken tune (Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!) So melancholy a soliloquy It sounds as it might tell The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, The terror of Time and Change and Death, That wastes this floating, transitory world.

What of the incantation That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore To take and wear the night Like a material majesty? That touched the shafts of wavering fire About this miserable welter and wash— (River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!)— Into long, shining signals from the panes Of an enchanted pleasure-house, Where life and life might live life lost in life For ever and evermore?

O Death! O Change! O Time! Without you, O, the insuperable eyes Of these poor Might-Have-Beens, These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!

XIV To J. A. C.

FRESH from his fastnesses Wholesome and spacious, The North Wind, the mad huntsman, Halloas on his white hounds Over the grey, roaring Reaches and ridges, The forest of ocean, The chace of the world. Hark to the peal Of the pack in full cry, As he thongs them before him, Swarming voluminous, Weltering, wide-wallowing, Till in a ruining Chaos of energy, Hurled on their quarry, They crash into foam!

Old Indefatigable, Time’s right-hand man, the sea Laughs as in joy From his millions of wrinkles: Laughs that his destiny, Great with the greatness Of triumphing order, Shows as a dwarf By the strength of his heart And the might of his hands.

Master of masters, O maker of heroes, Thunder the brave, Irresistible message:— ‘Life is worth Living Through every grain of it, From the foundations To the last edge Of the cornerstone, death.’