Did most engage
His pilgrimage,
While himself he did not see at all.
Dead now as sherds
Are the yellow birds,
And all that mattered has passed away;
Yet God, the Elf,
Now shows him that self
As he was, and should have been shown, that day.
O it would have been good
Could he then have stood
At a focussed distance, and conned the whole,
But now such vision
Is mere derision,
Nor soothes his body nor saves his soul.
Not much, some may
Incline to say,
To see therein, had it all been seen.
Nay! he is aware
A thing was there
That loomed with an immortal mien.
THE DISCOVERY
I wandered to a crude coast
Like a ghost;
Upon the hills I saw fires —
Funeral pyres
Seemingly – and heard breaking
Waves like distant cannonades that set the land shaking.
And so I never once guessed
A Love-nest,
Bowered and candle-lit, lay
In my way,
Till I found a hid hollow,
Where I burst on her my heart could not but follow.
TOLERANCE
“It is a foolish thing,” said I,
“To bear with such, and pass it by;
Yet so I do, I know not why!”
And at each clash I would surmise
That if I had acted otherwise
I might have saved me many sighs.
But now the only happiness
In looking back that I possess —
Whose lack would leave me comfortless —
Is to remember I refrained
From masteries I might have gained,
And for my tolerance was disdained;
For see, a tomb. And if it were
I had bent and broke, I should not dare
To linger in the shadows there.
BEFORE AND AFTER SUMMER
I
Looking forward to the spring
One puts up with anything.
On this February day,
Though the winds leap down the street,
Wintry scourgings seem but play,
And these later shafts of sleet
– Sharper pointed than the first —
And these later snows – the worst —
Are as a half-transparent blind
Riddled by rays from sun behind.
II
Shadows of the October pine
Reach into this room of mine:
On the pine there stands a bird;
He is shadowed with the tree.
Mutely perched he bills no word;
Blank as I am even is he.
For those happy suns are past,
Fore-discerned in winter last.
When went by their pleasure, then?
I, alas, perceived not when.
AT DAY-CLOSE IN NOVEMBER
The ten hours’ light is abating,
And a late bird flies across,
Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,
Give their black heads a toss.
Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,
Float past like specks in the eye;