Part 17 (1/2)

My road calls me, lures me West, east, south, and north; Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth

To add more miles to the tally Of grey miles left behind, In quest of that one beauty G.o.d put me here to find.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT

The perfect disc of the sacred moon Through still blue heaven serenely swims, And the lone bird's liquid music brims The peace of the night with a perfect tune.

This is that holiest night of the year When (the mowers say) may be heard and seen The ghostly court of the English queen, Who rides to harry and hunt the deer.

And the woodland creatures cower awake, A strange unrest is on harts and does, For the maiden Dian a-hunting goes, And the trembling deer are afoot in the brake.

They start at a shaken leaf: the sound Of a dry twig snapped by a squirrel's foot Is a nameless dread: and to them the hoot Of a mousing owl is the cry of a hound.

Oh soon the forest will ring with cries, The dim green coverts will flash: the gra.s.s Will glow as the radiant hunters pa.s.s After the quarry with burning eyes.

The hurrying feet will range unstayed Of questing G.o.ddess and hunted fawn, Till the east is grey with the sacred dawn, And the red c.o.c.k wakens the milking maid.

THE HARPER'S SONG

This sweetness trembling from the strings The music of my troublous lute Hath timed Herodias' daughter's foot; Setting a-clink her ankle-rings Whenas she danced to feasted kings.

Where gemmed apparel burned and caught The sunset 'neath the golden dome, To the dark beauties of old Rome My sorrowful lute hath haply brought Sad memories sweet with tender thought.

When night had fallen and lights and fires Were darkened in the homes of men, Some sighing echo stirred:--and then The old cunning wakened from the wires The old sorrows and the old desires.

Dead Kings in long forgotten lands, And all dead beauteous women; some Whose pride imperial hath become Old armour rusting in the sands And shards of iron in dusty hands,

Have heard my lyre's soft rise and fall Go trembling down the paven ways, Till every heart was all ablaze-- Hasty each foot--to obey the call To triumph or to funeral.

Could I begin again the slow Sweet mournful music filled with tears, Surely the old, dead, dusty ears Would hear; the old drowsy eyes would glow, Old memories come; old hopes and fears, And time restore the long ago.

THE GENTLE LADY

So beautiful, so dainty-sweet, So like a lyre's delightful touch-- A beauty perfect, ripe, complete That art's own hand could only s.m.u.tch And nature's self not better much.

So beautiful, so purely wrought, Like a fair missal penned with hymns, So gentle, so surpa.s.sing thought-- A beauteous soul in lovely limbs, A lantern that an angel trims.

So simple-sweet, without a sin, Like gentle music gently timed, Like rhyme-words coming aptly in, To round a mooned poem rhymed To tunes the laughing bells have chimed.

THE DEAD KNIGHT