THE winter, the animal sleep of the earth is over
And in the warmth of the affirming sun
All beings, beasts, men, planets, waters, move
Freed from the imprisoning frost, acclaim their love
That is the light of the sun.
So the first spring began
Within the heart before the Fall of Man.
The earth puts forth its sprays, the heart its warmth,
And your hands push back the dark that is your nurse,
Feel for my heart as in the days before your birth.
O Sun of my life, return to the waiting earth
Of your mother’s breast, the heart, the empty arms.
Come soon, for the time is passing, and when I am old
The night of my body will be too thick and cold
For the sun of your growing heart. Return from your new mother
The earth: she is too old for your little body,
Too old for the small tendernesses, the kissings
In the soft tendrils of your hair. The earth is so old
She can only think of darkness and sleep, forgetting
That children are restless like the small spring shadows.
But the huge pangs of winter and the pain
Of the spring’s birth, the endless centuries of rain
Will not lay bare your trusting smile, your tress,
Or lay your heart bare to my heart again
In your small earthly dress.
And when I wait for you upon the summer roads
They bear all things and men, business and pleasure, sorrow
And lovers’ meetings, mourning shades, the poor man’s leisure,
And the foolish rose that cares not ever for the far tomorrow.
But the roads are too busy for the sound of your feet,
And the lost men, the rejected of life, who tend the wounds
That life has made as if they were a new sunrise, whose human speech is dying
From want, to the rusted voice of the tiger, turn not their heads lest I hear your child-voice crying
In that hoarse tiger-voice; ‘I am hungry! am cold!’
Lest I see your smile upon lips that were made for the kiss that exists not,
The food that deserts them, — those lips never warm with love, but from the world’s fever,
Whose smile is a gap into darkness, the breaking apart
Of the long-impending earthquake that waits in the heart.
That smile rends the soul with the sign of its destitution,
It drips from the last long pangs of the heart, self-devouring,
And tearing the seer.
Yet one will return to the lost men,
Whose heart is the Sun of Reason, dispelling the shadow
That was born with no eyes to shed tears, — bringing peace to the lust
And pruriency of the Ape, from the human heart’s sublimity
And tenderness teaching the dust that it is holy,
And to those who are hungry, are naked and cold as the worm, who are bare as the spirit
In that last night when the rich and the poor are alone,
Bringing love like the daily bread, like the light at morning.
And knowing this, I would give you again, my day’s darling,
My little child who preferred the bright apple to gold,
And who lies with the shining world on his innocent eyes,
Though night-long I feel your tears, bright as the rose
In its sorrowful leaves, on my lips, and feel your hands
Touching my cheek, and wondering ‘Are those your tears?’
O grief, that your heart should know the tears that seem empty years
And the worlds that are falling!
To David Horner
AFTER the long and portentous eclipse of the patient sun
The sudden spring began
With the bird-sounds of Doom in the egg, and Fate in the bud that is flushed with the world’s fever —
But those bird-songs have trivial voices and sound not like thunder,
And the sound when the bud bursts is no more the sound of the worlds that are breaking.—
But the youth of the world, the lovers, said, ‘It is Spring!
And we who were black with the winter’s shade, and old,
See the emeralds are awake upon the branches
And grasses, bird-blood leaps within our veins
And is changed to emeralds like the sap in the grasses.
The beast-philosopher hiding in the orchards
Who had grown silent from the world’s long cold
Will tell us the secret of how spring began
In the young world before the Fall of Man.
For you are the young spring earth
And I, O Love, your dark and lowering heaven.’
But an envious ghost in the spring world
Sang to them a shrunken song
Of the world’s right and wrong —
Whispered to them through the leaves, ‘I wear
The world’s cold for a coat of mail
Over my body bare —
I have no heart to shield my bone
But with the world’s cold am alone —
And soon your heart, too, will be gone —
My day’s darling.’
The naked Knight in the coat of mail
Shrieked like a bird that flies through the leaves —
The dark bird proud as the Prince of the Air,
‘I am the world’s last love…. Beware —
Young girl, you press your lips to lips
That are already cold —
For even the bright earthly dress
Shall prove, at last, unfaithfulness.
His country’s love will steal his heart —
To you it will turn cold
When foreign earth lies on the breast
Where your young heart was wont to rest
Like leaves upon young leaves, when warm was the green spray
And warm was the heart of youth, my day’s darling.
And if that ghost return to you —
(The dead disguised as a living man)
Then I will come like Poverty
And wear your face, and give your kiss,
And shrink the world, and that sun the heart
Down to a penny’s span.
For there is a sound you heard in youth
A flower whose light is lost —
There is a faith and a delight —
They lie at last beneath my frost
When I am come like Time that all men, faiths, loves, suns defeat
My frost despoils the day’s young darling.
For the young heart like the spring wind grows cold
And the dust, the shining racer, is overtaking
The laughing young people who are running like fillies
The golden ladies and the ragpickers
And the foolish companions of spring, the wild wood lilies.’
But the youth of the world said, ‘Give me your golden hand
That is but earth, yet it holds the lands of heaven
And you are the sound of the growth of spring in the heart’s deep core,
The hawthorn-blossoming boughs of the stars and the young orchards’ emerald lore.’
And hearing that, the poor ghost fled like the winter rain —
Sank into greenish dust like the fallen moon
Or the sweet green dust of the lime-flowers that will be
blossoming soon — And spring grew warm again. —
No more the accusing light, revealing the rankness of Nature —
All motives and desires and lack of desire
In the human heart, but loving all life, it comes to bless
Immortal things in their poor earthly dress —
The blind of life beneath the frost of their great winter
And those for whom the winter breaks in flower
And summer grows from a long-shadowed kiss.
And Love is the vernal equinox in the veins
When the sun crosses the marrow and pith of the heart
Among the veridian smells, the green rejoicing.
All names, sounds, faiths, delights and duties lost1
Return to the hearts of men, those households of high heaven.
And voices speak in the woods as from a nest
Of leaves — they sing of rest,
And love, and toil, the rhythms of their lives,
Singing how winter’s dark was overcome,
And making plans for tomorrow as though yesterday
Had never been, nor the lonely ghost’s old sorrow.
And Time seemed but the beat of heart to heart,
And Death the pain of earth turning to spring again
When lovers meet after the winter rain.
And when we are gone, they will see in the great mornings
Born of our lives, some memory of us, the golden stalk
Of the young long-petalled flower of the sun in the pale air
Among the dew…. Are we not all of the same substance,
Men, planets, and earth, born from the heart of darkness
Returning to darkness, the consoling mother,
For the short winter sleep — O my calyx of the flower of the world, you the spirit
Moving upon the waters, the light on the breast of the dove.
THE END