By Still Waters: Lyrical Poems Old and New — Reading Notes

There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide, And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all The immortal moods that faded, the god who died, Hastening away to the King on a distant call.

There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven, And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged; And we passed away unremembering and unforgiven, Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed.

Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind, We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight; We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would find When we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night.

Who would think this quiet breather From the world had taken flight? Yet within the form we see there Wakes the golden King to-night.

Out upon the face of faces He looked forth before his sleep: Now he knows the starry races Haunters of the ancient deep;

On the Bird of Diamond Glory Floats in mystic floods of song: As he lists Time's triple story Seems but as a day is long.

From the mightier Adam falling To his image dwarfed in clay, He will at our voices calling Come to this side of the day.

When he wakes, the dreamy-hearted, He will know not whence he came, And the light from which he parted Be the seraph's sword of flame,

And behind it hosts supernal Guarding the lost paradise, And the tree of life eternal From the weeping human eyes.

The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground: The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound: And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind, Too swift and hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind. Twin gates unto that living world, dark honey-coloured eyes The lifting of whose lashes flushed the face with paradise-- Beloved, there I saw within their ardent rays unfold The likeness of enraptured birds that flew from deeps of gold To deeps of gold within my breast to rest or there to be Transfigured in the light, or find a death to life in me. So love, a burning multitude, a seraph wind which blows From out the deep of being to the deep of being goes: And sun and moon and starry fires and earth and air and sea Are creatures from the deep let loose who pause in ecstasy, Or wing their wild and heavenly way until again they find The ancient deep and fade therein, enraptured, bright and blind.

How shallow is this mere that gleams! Its depth of blue is from the skies; And from a distant sun the dreams And lovely light within your eyes.

We deem our love so infinite Because the Lord is everywhere, And love awakening is made bright And bathed in that diviner air.

We go on our enchanted way And deem our hours immortal hours, Who are but shadow kings that play With mirrored majesties and powers.

Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill; Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil. In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song. All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away Stream the tresses of the twilight flying in the wake of day. Night comes; soon alone shall fancy follow sadly in her flight Where the fiery dust of evening, shaken from the feet of light, Thrusts its monstrous barriers between the pure, the good, the true, That our weeping eyes may strain for, but shall never after view. Only yester eve I watched with heart at rest the nebulæ Looming far within the shadowy shining of the Milky Way; Finding in the stillness joy and hope for all the sons of men; Now what silent anguish fills a night more beautiful than then. For earth's age of pain has come, and all her sister planets weep, Thinking of her fires of morning passing into dreamless sleep. In this cycle of great sorrow for the moments that we last We too shall be linked by weeping to the greatness of her past: But the coming race shall know not, and the fount of tears shall dry, And the arid heart of man be arid as the desert sky. So within my mind the darkness dawned and round me everywhere Hope departed with the twilight, leaving only dumb despair.

We are tired who follow after Phantasy and truth that flies: You with only look and laughter Stain our hearts with richest dyes.