Or come as faint blown wind across the strings
Of this odd lute of mine imaginings
And make it whisper me quaint things and high
Such peace as this would make death’s self most sweet
Could I but know, Thou maiden of the sun,
That thus thy presence would go forth with me
Unto that shadow land where ages’ feet
Have wandered, and where life’s dreaming done
Love may dream on unto eternity.
Green Harping
Thou that wearest the doeskins’ hue
“Hallew!” “Hallew!”
Tho the elfin horn shall call to you
’true be true
By the violets in thy leaf brown hair
’ware be ware
Tho the elfin knights shall find thee fair
’ware too fair
Tho hosts of night shall hail thee queen
In the Eringreen
The elf old queen hath sorrow seen
and teen much teen
Tho the shadow lords shall marshall their might
afore thy sight
Hold thou thy heart for my heart’s right
in their despite
Tho night shall dwell in thy child eyes
’wise be wise
That thy child heart to mine emprise
’plies replies
For night shall flee from the fore-sun’s flame
’shame in shame
Tho my heart to thee embeggared came
’same ’tis the same
That lordship o’er the light doth hold
’bold quite bold
And thee to my kingdom I enfold
By spell of old.
From another sonnet.
THY FINGERS MOVE AGAIN ACROSS
MY FACE
AS LITTLE WINDS THAT DREAM
BUT DARE IN NO WISE TELL THEIR
DREAM ALOUD-
Li Bel Chasteus
That castle stands the highest in the Land
Far seen and mighty
— Of the great hewn stones
What shall I say?
And deep foss-way
That far beneath us bore of old
A swelling turbid sea
Hill-born and torrent-wise
Unto the fields below, where
Staunch villein and wandered
Burgher held the land and tilled
Long labouring for gold of wheat grain
And to see the beards come forth
For barley’s even-tide.
But circle arched above the hum of life
We dwelt, amid the
Ancient boulders
Gods had hewn
And druids runed
Unto the birth most wondrous
That had grown
A mighty fortress while the world had slept
And we awaited in the shadows there
While mighty hands had laboured sightlessly
And shaped this wonder ’bove the ways of men.
Meseems we could not see the great green waves
Nor rocky shore by Tintagoel
From this our hold
But came faint murmuring as undersong
E’en as the burgher’s hum arose
And died as faint wind melody
Beneath our gates.
The Arches
That wind-swept castle hight with thee alone
Above the dust and rumble of the earth:
It seemeth to mine heart another birth
To date the mystic time, whence I have grown
Unto new mastery of dreams and thrown
Old shadows from me as of lesser worth.
For ‘neath the arches where the winds make mirth
We two may drink a lordship all our own.
Yea alway had I longed to hold real dreams
Not laboured things we make beneath the sun
But such as come unsummoned in our sleep,
And this above thine other gifts, meseems
Thou’st given me. So when the day is done
Thou meet me ’bove the world in this our keep.
Era Venuta
Some times I feel thy cheek against my face
Close pressing, soft as is the South’s first breath
That all the soft small earth things summoneth
To spring in woodland and in meadow space
Yea sometimes in a dusty man-filled place
Meseemeth somewise thy hair wandereth
Across my eyes as mist that halloweth
My sight and shutteth out the world’s disgrace
That is apostasy of them that fail
Denying that God doth God’s self disclose
In every beauty that they will not see.
Naethless when this sweetness comes to me
I know thy thought doth pass as elfin “Hail”
That beareth thee, as doth the wind a rose.
The Tree
I stood still and was a tree amid the wood
Knowing the truth of things unseen before
Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old
That grew elm-oak amid the wold
‘Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated and been brought within
Unto the hearth of their hearts’ home
That they might do this wonder thing.
Naethless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many new things understood
That were rank folly to my head before.
Being before the vision of Li Bel Chasteus
“E’en as lang syne from shadowy castle towers
“Thy striving eyes did wander to discern
“Which compass point my homeward way should be.”
For you meseem some strange strong soul of wine …
Hair some hesitating wind shall blow backward as some brown haze
That drifteth from thy face as fog that shifteth from fore some
Hidden light and slow discloseth that the light is fair—
Thu Ides Til
O thou of Maydes all most wonder sweet
That art my comfort eke and my solace
Whan thee I find in any wolde or place
I doon thee reverence as is most meet.
To cry thy prayse I nill nat be discreet
Thou hast swich debonairite and grace
Swich gentyl smile thy alderfayrest face
To run thy prayse I ne hold not my feet.
My Lady, tho I ne me hold thee fro
Nor streyve with thee by any game to play
But offer only thee myn own herte reede
I prey by love that thou wilt kindness do
And that thou keep my song by night and day
As shadow blood from myn own herte y-blede.
L’Envoi
Full oft in musty, quaint lined book of old
Have I found rhyming for some maiden quaint
In fashioned chançonnette and teen’s compleynt
The sweet-scent loves of chivalry be told
With fair conceit and flower manifold
Right subtle tongued in complex verse restraint
Against their lyric might my skill’s but faint.
My flower’s outworn, the later rhyme runs cold
Naethless, I loving cease me not to sing
Love song was blossom to the searching breeze
E’er Paris’ rhyming had availed to bring
Helen and Greece for towered Troy’s disease
Wherefor, these petals to the winds I fling
’Vail they or fail they as the winds shall please.
The Wind
“I would go forth into the night” she saith.
The night is very cold beneath the moon
’Twere meet, my Love that thou went forth at noon