Poetry

Shepherd puts the flute to his lips; there comes from it a piercing cry. He drops it. First Shepherd

It is possessed.

Third Shepherd

Nay, give it me, and I will sound a measure;
And unto it we’ll dance upon the sward.

Puts it to his lips. A voice out of the flute still more mournful. First Shepherd

An omen!

Second Shepherd

An omen!

Third Shepherd

A creeping horror is all over me.

Enter an Old Knight. They cast themselves down before him. Knight

Are all things well with you and with your sheep?

Second Shepherd

Yes, all is very well.

First Shepherd

Whence comest thou?

Knight

Shepherds, I came this morning to your land
From threescore years of dream-led wandering
Where spice isles nestle on the star-trod seas,
And where the polar winds and waters wrestle
In endless dark, and by the weedy marge
Of India’s rivers, rolling on in light.
But soon my wandering shall be done I know.
A voice has told me how within this land
There lies the long-lost forest of the sprite,
The sullen wood. But many woods I see
Where to themselves innumerable birds
Make moan and cry.

First Shepherd

Within yon sunless valley
Between the horned hills⁠—

Knight

Shepherds, farewell!
And peace be with you, peace and wealth of days.

Second Shepherd

Seek not that wood, for there the goblin snakes
Go up and down, and raise their heads and sing
With little voices songs of fearful things.

Third Shepherd

No shepherd foot has ever dared its depths.

First Shepherd

The very squirrel dies that enters it.

Knight

Shepherds, farewell!

Goes. Second Shepherd

He soon will be

First Shepherd

Ashes
Before the wind.

Third Shepherd

Saw you his eyes a-glitter,
His body shake?

Second Shepherd

Aye, quivering as yon smoke
That from the fire is ever pouring up,
Within the woodways, blue as the halcyon’s wing,
Star-envious.

Third Shepherd

He was a spirit, brother.

Second Shepherd

The blessed God was good to send us such,
To make us glad with wonder as we sat
Weary of watching round the fire at night.

Scene II

A ruined palace in the forest. Away in the depth of the shadow of the pillars a motionless Figure.

	Enter the Old Knight.
Knight	Behold I bend before thee to the ground Until my beard is in the twisted leaves That with their fiery ruin fill the hall, As words of thine through fourscore years have filled My echoing heart. Now raise thy voice and speak! Even from boyhood, in my father’s house, That was beside the waterfall, thy words Abode as banded adders in my breast. Thou knowest this, and how from mid the dance Thou called’st me forth, And how thou madest me A coward in the field; and all men cried: Behold the Knight of the Waterfall, whose heart The spirits stole, and gave him in its stead A peering hare’s; and yet I murmured not, Knowing that thou hadst singled me with word Of love from out a dreamless race for strife, Through miseries unhuman ever on To joys unhuman, and to thee⁠—Speak! Speak
	He draws nearer to the Figure. A pause.
	Behold I bend before thee to the ground; Thou wilt not speak, and I with age am near To Death. His lips are glued, with quivering touch, To mine, and he is slowly sucking forth My soul. His darkness and his chill I feel. Were all my wandering days of no avail Untouched of human joy or human love? Then let me see thy face before I die. Behold I bow before thee to the ground! Behold I bow! Around my beard in drifts Lie strewn the clotted leaves⁠—the dead old leaves.
	He gathers up the leaves and presses them to his breast.
	Thou wilt not speak, Oh cruel art thou yet! Mine heart-strings are all broken saving one, That trembles and resounds with hymns to thee, That fill the blazing hollows of my heart. I’m dying! Oh forgive me if I touch Thy garment’s hem, thou visionary one!
	He approaches close to the Figure. A sudden light bursts over it.
Knight	A bearded witch, her sluggish head low bent On her broad breast! beneath her withered brows Shine dull unmoving eyes. What thing art thou? I sought thee not.
Figure	Men call me Infamy. I know not what I am.
Knight	I sought thee not.
Figure	Lover, the voice that summoned thee was mine.
Knight	For all I gave the voice, for all my youth, For all my joy.⁠—Ah woe!
	The Figure raises a mirror in which the face and the form of the Knight are shadowed. He falls forward.
The Figure	Bending over him and speaking in his ear. What! Lover, die before our lips have met?
Knight	Again, the voice! the voice!
	Dies.

In a Drawing-Room

Around the twitter of the lips of dust
A tossing laugh between their redness ’bides⁠—
With patient beauty yonder Attic bust
In the deep alcove’s dimness smiles and hides.

Two spirit things a man hath for his friends:
Sorrow that gives for guerdon liberty,
And joy, the touching of whose finger lends
To lightest of light things all sanctity.

Life

The child pursuing lizards in the grass,
The sage, who deep in central nature delves,
The preacher watching for the evil hour to pass,
All these are souls that fly from their dread selves.

The squirrel yonder, hushed and wise
Forswears his wandering ’mong the pine,
And wherefore, then, should thy grey eyes
Wander away from mine?

The talking winds have found their home,
Eve-soothed in some far leafy rest,
And wherefore should thy bright brow roam
Madonna from my breast?

A little while and⁠—red eve dies⁠—
Our love shall be of yesterday,
Ah, let us kiss each other’s eyes,
And laugh our love away.

“I laughed upon the lips of Sophocles,
I go as soft as folly; I am Fate.”
This heard I where among the apple trees,
Wild indolence and music have no date.

The Two Titans

A Political Poem

The vision of a rock where lightnings whirl’d
Bruising the darkness with their crackling light;
The waves, enormous wanderers of the world,
Beat on it with their hammers day and night.
Two figures crouching on the black rock, bound
To one another with a coiling chain;
A grey-haired