XXVII Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What enter'd into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. XXVIII He fix'd thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest : To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impress'd. XXIX What tho' the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What tho' about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, XXX The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with Thee, God, who mouldest men! And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I, to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily, mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: So, take and use Thy work, XXXII Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as plann'd! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA I I WONDER do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, II For me, I touch'd a thought, I know, III Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, IV Where one small orange cup amass'd Five beetles, - blind and green they grope Everywhere on the grassy slope, I traced it. Hold it fast! V The champaign with its endless fleece VI Such life here, thro' such lengths of hours, Such primal naked forms of flowers, VII How say you? Let us, O my dove, As earth lies bare to heaven above! To love or not to love? VIII I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core O' the wound, since wound must be? IX I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs, In life, for good and ill. X -- your part my part No. I yearn upward, touch you close, XI Already how am I so far Out of that minute? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, whenever light winds blow, Fix'd by no friendly star? And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough now! II And after April, when May follows, And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows! Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge – That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, EVELYN HOPE BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead! Little has yet been changed, I think . Sixteen years old when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; It was not her time to love; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, And now was quiet, now astir, Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? And our paths in the world diverged so wide, No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love: I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delay'd it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few : Much is to learn, much to forget Ere the time be come for taking you. But the time will come, at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead. I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Gain'd me the gains of various men, Ransack'd the ages, spoil'd the climes; And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! |