Dedication
1865
The sea gives her shells to the shingle, | |
The earth gives her streams to the sea; | |
They are many, but my gift is single, | |
My verses, the firstfruits of me. | |
Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf, | |
Cast forth without fruit upon air; | |
Take rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf | |
Blown loose from the hair. | |
The night shakes them round me in legions, | |
10 | Dawn drives them before her like dreams; |
Time sheds them like snows on strange regions, | |
Swept shoreward on infinite streams; | |
Leaves pallid and sombre and ruddy, | |
Dead fruits of the fugitive years; | |
Some stained as with wine and made bloody, | |
And some as with tears. | |
Some scattered in seven years’ traces, | |
As they fell from the boy that was then; | |
Long left among the idle green places, | |
20 | Or gathered but now among men; |
On seas full of wonder and peril, | |
Blown white round the capes of the north; | |
Or in islands where myrtles are sterile | |
And loves bring not forth. | |
O daughters of dreams and of stories | |
That life is not wearied of yet, | |
Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores, | |
Félise and Yolande and Juliette, | |
Shall I find you not still, shall I miss you, | |
30 | When sleep, that is true or that seems, |
Comes back to me hopeless to kiss you, | |
O daughters of dreams? | |
They are past as a slumber that passes, | |
As the dew of a dawn of old time; | |
More frail than the shadows on glasses, | |
More fleet than a wave or a rhyme. | |
As the waves after ebb drawing seaward, | |
When their hollows are full of the night, | |
So the birds that flew singing to me-ward | |
40 | Recede out of sight. |
The songs of dead seasons, that wander | |
On wings of articulate words; | |
Lost leaves that the shore-wind may squander, | |
Light flocks of untameable birds; | |
Some sang to me dreaming in class-time | |
And truant in hand as in tongue; | |
For the youngest were born of boy’s pastime, | |
The eldest are young. | |
Is there shelter while life in them lingers, | |
50 | Is there hearing for songs that recede, |
Tunes touched from a harp with man’s fingers | |
Or blown with boy’s mouth in a reed? | |
Is there place in the land of your labour, | |
Is there room in your world of delight, | |
Where change has not sorrow for neighbour | |
And day has not night? | |
In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers, | |
Will you spare not a space for them there | |
Made green with the running of rivers | |
60 | And gracious with temperate air; |
In the fields and the turreted cities, | |
That cover from sunshine and rain | |
Fair passions and bountiful pities | |
And loves without stain? | |
In a land of clear colours and stories, | |
In a region of shadowless hours, | |
Where earth has a garment of glories | |
And a murmur of musical flowers; | |
In woods where the spring half uncovers | |
70 | The flush of her amorous face, |
By the waters that listen for lovers, | |
For these is there place? | |
For the song-birds of sorrow, that muffle | |
Their music as clouds do their fire: | |
For the storm-birds of passion, that ruffle | |
Wild wings in a wind of desire; | |
In the stream of the storm as it settles | |
Blown seaward, borne far from the sun, | |
Shaken loose on the darkness like petals | |
80 | Dropt one after one? |
Though the world of your hands be more gracious | |
And lovelier in lordship of things | |
Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious | |
Warm heaven of her imminent wings, | |
Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting, | |
For the love of old loves and lost times; | |
And receive in your palace of painting | |
This revel of rhymes. | |
Though the seasons of man full of losses | |
90 | Make empty the years full of youth, |
If but one thing be constant in crosses, | |
Change lays not her hand upon truth; | |
Hopes die, and their tombs are for token | |
That the grief as the joy of them ends | |
Ere time that breaks all men has broken | |
The faith between friends. | |
Though the many lights dwindle to one light, | |
There is help if the heaven has one; | |
Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight | |
100 | And the earth dispossessed of the sun, |
They have moonlight and sleep for repayment, | |
When, refreshed as a bride and set free, | |
With stars and sea-winds in her raiment, | |
Night sinks on the sea. |