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Title: The Listeners and Other Poems

Author: Walter De la Mare

Release date: September 10, 2007 [eBook #22569]

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, storm, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LISTENERS AND OTHER POEMS ***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, storm,

and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

(http://www.pgdp.net)

THE LISTENERS

AND OTHER POEMS

BY

WALTER DE LA MARE

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

The author's thanks for permission to reprint certain of the poems included in this collection are due to the Editors of the Saturday Review, the Thrush, the Pall Mall Magazine, the Odd Volume, the Lady's Realm, the English Review, the Westminster Gazette, the Commonwealth, and the Nation.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE THREE CHERRY TREES

1

OLD SUSAN

3

OLD BEN

5

MISS LOO

7

THE TAILOR

9

MARTHA

10

THE SLEEPER

12

THE KEYS OF MORNING

14

RACHEL

16

ALONE

17

THE BELLS

19

THE SCARECROW

21

NOD

23

THE BINDWEED

25

WINTER

26

THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY

27

NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER

29

ESTRANGED

30

THE TIRED CUPID

31

DREAMS

32

FAITHLESS

33

THE SHADE

34

BE ANGRY NOW NO MORE

35

SPRING

36

EXILE

37

WHERE?

38

MUSIC UNHEARD

39

ALL THAT'S PAST

41

WHEN THE ROSE IS FADED

43

SLEEP

44

THE STRANGER

45

NEVER MORE, SAILOR

47

THE WITCH

49

ARABIA

52

THE MOUNTAINS

54

QUEEN DJENIRA

55

NEVER-TO-BE

57

THE DARK CHATEAU

59

THE DWELLING-PLACE

61

THE LISTENERS

64

TIME PASSES

66

BEWARE!

68

THE JOURNEY

69

HAUNTED

74

SILENCE

76

WINTER DUSK

78

AGES AGO

80

HOME

82

THE GHOST

84

AN EPITAPH

85

'THE HAWTHORN HATH A DEATHLY SMELL'

86

THE THREE CHERRY TREES

There were three cherry trees once,

Grew in a garden all shady;

And there for delight of so gladsome a sight,

Walked a most beautiful lady,

Dreamed a most beautiful lady.

Birds in those branches did sing,

Blackbird and throstle and linnet,

But she walking there was by far the most fair—

Lovelier than all else within it,

Blackbird and throstle and linnet.

But blossoms to berries do come,

All hanging on stalks light and slender,

And one long summer's day charmed that lady away,

With vows sweet and merry and tender;

A lover with voice low and tender.

Moss and lichen the green branches deck;

Weeds nod in its paths green and shady:

Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams,

The ghost of that beautiful lady,

That happy and beautiful lady.

OLD SUSAN

When Susan's work was done she'd sit,

With one fat guttering candle lit,

And window opened wide to win

The sweet night air to enter in;

There, with a thumb to keep her place

She'd read, with stern and wrinkled face,

Her mild eyes gliding very slow

Across the letters to and fro,

While wagged the guttering candle flame

In the wind that through the window came.

And sometimes in the silence she

Would mumble a sentence audibly,

Or shake her head as if to say,

'You silly souls, to act this way!'

And never a sound from night I'd hear,

Unless some far-off cock crowed clear;

Or her old shuffling thumb should turn

Another page; and rapt and stern,

Through her great glasses bent on me

She'd glance into reality;

And shake her round old silvery head,

With—'You!—I thought you was in bed!'—

Only to tilt her book again,

And rooted in Romance remain.

OLD BEN

Sad is old Ben Thistlewaite,

Now his day is done,

And all his children

Far away are gone.

He sits beneath his jasmined porch,

His stick between his knees,

His eyes fixed vacant

On his moss-grown trees.

Grass springs in the green path,

His flowers are lean and dry,

His thatch hangs in wisps against

The evening sky.

He has no heart to care now,

Though the winds will blow

Whistling in his casement,

And the rain drip thro'.

He thinks of his old Bettie,

How she'd shake her head and say,

'You'll live to wish my sharp old tongue

Could scold—some day,'

But as in pale high autumn skies

The swallows float and play,

His restless thoughts pass to and fro,

But nowhere stay.

Soft, on the morrow, they are gone;

His garden then will be

Denser and shadier and greener,

Greener the moss-grown tree.

MISS LOO

When thin-strewn memory I look through,

I see most clearly poor Miss Loo,

Her tabby cat, her cage of birds,

Her nose, her hair—her muffled words,

And how she'd open her green eyes,

As if in some immense surprise,

Whenever as we sat at tea

She made some small remark to me.

It's always drowsy summer when

From out the past she comes again;

The westering sunshine in a pool

Floats in her parlour still and cool;

While the slim bird its lean wires shakes,

As into piercing song it breaks;

Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar

Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar.

And I am sitting, dull and shy,

And she with gaze of vacancy,

And large hands folded on the tray,

Musing the afternoon away;

Her satin bosom heaving slow

With sighs that softly ebb and flow,

And her plain face in such dismay,

It seems unkind to look her way:

Until all cheerful back will come

Her cheerful gleaming spirit home:

And one would think that poor Miss Loo

Asked nothing else, if she had you.

THE TAILOR

Few footsteps stray when dusk droops o'er

The tailor's old stone-lintelled door:

There sits he stitching half asleep,

Beside his smoky tallow dip.

'Click, click,' his needle hastes, and shrill

Cries back the cricket 'neath the sill.

Sometimes he stays, and o'er his thread

Leans sidelong his old tousled head;

Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye

When some strange footfall echoes by;

Till clearer gleams his candle's spark

Into the dusty summer dark.

Then from his crosslegs he gets down,

To find how dark the evening's grown;

And hunched-up in his door he'll hear

The cricket whistling crisp and clear;

And so beneath the starry grey

Will mutter half a seam away.

MARTHA

'Once ... once upon a time ...'

Over and over again,

Martha would tell us her stories,

In the hazel glen.

Hers were those clear grey eyes

You watch, and the story seems

Told by their beautifulness

Tranquil as dreams.

She'd sit with her two slim hands

Clasped round her bended knees;

While we on our elbows lolled,

And stared at ease.

Her voice and her narrow chin,

Her grave small lovely head,

Seemed half the meaning

Of the words she said.

'Once ... once upon a time ...'

Like a dream you dream in the night,

Fairies and gnomes stole out

In the leaf-green light.

And her beauty far away

Would fade, as her voice ran on,

Till hazel and summer sun

And all were gone:—

All fordone and forgot;

And like clouds in the height of the sky,

Our hearts stood still in the hush

Of an age gone by.

THE SLEEPER

As Ann came in one summer's day,

She felt that she must creep,

So silent was the clear cool house,

It seemed a house of sleep.

And sure, when she pushed open the door,

Rapt in the stillness there,

Her mother sat, with stooping head,

Asleep upon a chair;

Fast—fast asleep; her two hands laid

Loose-folded on her knee,

So that her small unconscious face

Looked half unreal to be:

So calmly lit with sleep's pale light

Each feature was; so fair

Her forehead—every trouble was

Smooth'd out beneath her hair.

But though her mind in dream now moved,

Still seemed her gaze to rest

From out beneath her fast-sealed lids,

Above her moving breast,

On Ann, as quite, quite still she stood;

Yet slumber lay so deep

Even her hands upon her lap

Seemed saturate with sleep.

And as Ann peeped, a cloudlike dread

Stole over her, and then,

On stealthy, mouselike feet she trod,

And tiptoed out again.

THE KEYS OF MORNING

While at her bedroom window once,

Learning her task for school,

Little Louisa lonely sat

In the morning clear and cool,

She slanted her small bead-brown eyes

Across the empty street,

And saw Death softly watching her

In the sunshine pale and sweet.

His was a long lean sallow face,

He sat with half-shut eyes,

Like an old sailor in a ship

Becalmed 'neath tropic skies.

Beside him in the dust he'd set

His staff and shady hat;

These, peeping small, Louisa saw

Quite clearly where she sat—

The thinness of his coal-black locks,

His hands so long and lean

They scarcely seemed to grasp at all

The keys that hung between:

Both were of gold, but one was small,

And with this last did he

Wag in the air, as if to say,

'Come hither, child, to me!'

Louisa laid her lesson book

On the cold window-sill;

And in the sleepy sunshine house

Went softly down, until

She stood in the half-opened door,

And peeped; but strange to say,

Where Death just now had sunning sat

Only a shadow lay;—

Just the tall chimney's round-topped cowl,

And the small sun behind,

Had with its shadow in the dust

Called sleepy Death to mind.

But most she thought how strange it was

Two keys that he should bear,

And that, when beckoning, he should wag

The littlest in the air.

RACHEL

Rachel sings sweet—

Oh yes, at night,

Her pale face bent

In the candle-light,

Her slim hands touch

The answering keys,

And she sings of hope

And of memories:

Sings to the little

Boy that stands

Watching those slim,

Light, heedful hands.

He looks in her face;

Her dark eyes seem

Dark with a beautiful

Distant dream;

And still she plays,

Sings tenderly

To him of hope,

And of memory.

ALONE

A very old woman

Lives in yon house—

The squeak of the cricket,

The stir of the mouse,

Are all she knows

Of the earth and us.

Once she was young,

Would dance and play,

Like many another

Young popinjay;

And run to her mother

At dusk of day.

And colours bright

She delighted in;

The fiddle to hear,

And to lift her chin,

And sing as small

As a twittering wren.

But age apace

Comes at last to all;

And a lone house filled

With the cricket's call;

And the scampering mouse

In the hollow wall.

THE BELLS

Shadow and light both strove to be

The eight bell-ringers' company,

As with his gliding rope in hand,

Counting his changes, each did stand;

While rang and trembled every stone,

To music by the bell-mouths blown,

Till the bright clouds that towered on high

Seemed to re-echo cry with cry.

Still swang the clappers to and fro,

When, in the far-spread fields below,

I saw a ploughman with his team

Lift to the bells and fix on them

His distant eyes, as if he would

Drink in the utmost sound he could;

While near him sat his children three,

And in the green grass placidly

Played undistracted on, as if

What music earthly bells might give

Could only faintly stir their dream,

And stillness make more lovely seem.

Soon night hid horses, children, all

In sleep deep and ambrosial;

Yet, yet it seemed from star to star,

Welling now near, now faint and far,

Those echoing bells rang on in dream,

And stillness made even lovelier seem.

THE SCARECROW

All winter through I bow my head

Beneath the driving rain;

The North wind powders me with snow

And blows me black again;

At midnight 'neath a maze of stars

I flame with glittering rime,

And stand, above the stubble, stiff

As mail at morning-prime.

But when that child, called Spring, and all

His host of children, come,

Scattering their buds and dew upon

Those acres of my home,

Some rapture in my rags awakes;

I lift void eyes and scan

The skies for crows, those ravening foes,

Of my strange master, Man.

I watch him striding lank behind

His clashing team, and know

Soon will the wheat swish body high

Where once lay sterile snow;

Soon shall I gaze across a sea

Of sun-begotten grain,

Which my unflinching watch hath sealed

For harvest once again.

NOD

Softly along the road of evening,

In a twilight dim with rose,

Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew

Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.

His drowsy flock streams on before him,

Their fleeces charged with gold,

To where the sun's last beam leans low

On Nod the shepherd's fold.

The hedge is quick and green with briar,

From their sand the conies creep;

And all the birds that fly in heaven

Flock singing home to sleep.

His lambs outnumber a noon's roses,

Yet, when night's shadows fall,

His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon,

Misses not one of all.

His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,

The waters of no-more-pain,

His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars,

'Rest, rest, and rest again.'

THE BINDWEED

The bindweed roots pierce down

Deeper than men do lie,

Laid in their dark-shut graves

Their slumbering kinsmen by.

Yet what frail thin-spun flowers

She casts into the air,

To breathe the sunshine, and

To leave her fragrance there.

But when the sweet moon comes,

Showering her silver down,

Half-wreathèd in faint sleep,

They droop where they have blown.

So all the grass is set,

Beneath her trembling ray,

With buds that have been flowers,

Brimmed with reflected day.

WINTER

Clouded with snow

The cold winds blow,

And shrill on leafless bough

The robin with its burning breast

Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,

Day's journey done,

Sheds its last ebbing light

On fields in leagues of beauty spread

Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,

And spark by spark,

The frost-fires kindle, and soon

Over that sea of frozen foam

Floats the white moon.

THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY

There blooms no bud in May

Can for its white compare

With snow at break of day,

On fields forlorn and bare.

For shadow it hath rose,

Azure, and amethyst;

And every air that blows

Dies out in beauteous mist.

It hangs the frozen bough

With flowers on which the night

Wheeling her darkness through

Scatters a starry light.

Fearful of its pale glare

In flocks the starlings rise;

Slide through the frosty air,

And perch with plaintive cries.

Only the inky rook,

Hunched cold in ruffled wings,

Its snowy nest forsook,

Caws of unnumbered Springs.

NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER

Not any flower that blows

But shining watch doth keep;

Every swift changing chequered hour it knows

Now to break forth in beauty; now to sleep.

This for the roving bee

Keeps open house, and this

Stainless and clear is, that in darkness she

May lure the moth to where her nectar is.

Lovely beyond the rest

Are these of all delight:—

The tiny pimpernel that noon loves best,

The primrose palely burning through the night.

One 'neath day's burning sky

With ruby decks her place,

The other when Eve's chariot glideth by

Lifts her dim torch to light that dreaming face.

ESTRANGED

No one was with me there—

Happy I was—alone;

Yet from the sunshine suddenly

A joy was gone.

A bird in an empty house

Sad echoes makes to ring,

Flitting from room to room

On restless wing:

Till from its shades he flies,

And leaves forlorn and dim

The narrow solitudes

So strange to him.

So, when with fickle heart

I joyed in the passing day,

A presence my mood estranged

Went grieved away.

THE TIRED CUPID

The thin moonlight with trickling ray,

Thridding the boughs of silver may,

Trembles in beauty, pale and cool,

On folded flower, and mantled pool.

All in a haze the rushes lean—

And he—he sits, with chin between

His two cold hands; his bare feet set

Deep in the grasses, green and wet.

About his head a hundred rings

Of gold loop down to meet his wings,

Whose feathers arched their stillness through

Gleam with slow-gathering drops of dew.

The mouse-bat peers; the stealthy vole

Creeps from the covert of its hole;

A shimmering moth its pinions furls,

Grey in the moonshine of his curls;

'Neath the faint stars the night-airs stray,

Scattering the fragrance of the may;

And with each stirring of the bough

Shadow beclouds his childlike brow.

DREAMS

Be gentle, O hands of a child;

Be true: like a shadowy sea

In the starry darkness of night

Are your eyes to me.

But words are shallow, and soon

Dreams fade that the heart once knew;

And youth fades out in the mind,

In the dark eyes too.

What can a tired heart say,

Which the wise of the world have made dumb?

Save to the lonely dreams of a child,

'Return again, come!'

FAITHLESS

The words you said grow faint;

The lamp you lit burns dim;

Yet, still be near your faithless friend

To urge and counsel him.

Still with returning feet

To where life's shadows brood,

With steadfast eyes made clear in death

Haunt his vague solitude.

So he, beguiled with earth,

Yet with its vain things vexed,

Keep even to his own heart unknown

Your memory unperplexed.

THE SHADE

Darker than night; and oh, much darker, she,

Whose eyes in deep night darkness gaze on me.

No stars surround her; yet the moon seems hid

Afar somewhere, beneath that narrow lid.

She darkens against the darkness; and her face

Only by adding thought to thought I trace,

Limned shadowily: O dream, return once more

To gloomy Hades and the whispering shore!

BE ANGRY NOW NO MORE

Be angry now no more!

If I have grieved thee—if

Thy kindness, mine before,

No hope may now restore:

Only forgive, forgive!

If still resentment burns

In thy cold breast, oh if

No more to pity turns,

No more, once tender, yearns

Thy love; oh yet forgive!...

Ask of the winter rain

June's withered rose again:

Ask grace of the salt sea:

She will not answer thee.

God would ten times have shriven

A heart so riven;

In her cold care thou'dst be

Still unforgiven.

SPRING

Once when my life was young,

I, too, with Spring's bright face

By mine, walked softly along,

Pace to his pace.

Then burned his crimson may,

Like a clear flame outspread,

Arching our happy way:

Then would he shed

Strangely from his wild face

Wonderful light on me—

Like hounds that keen in chase

Their quarry see.

Oh, sorrow now to know

What shafts, what keenness cold

His are to pierce me through,

Now that I'm old.

EXILE

Had the gods loved me I had lain

Where darnel is, and thorn,

And the wild night-bird's nightlong strain

Trembles in boughs forlorn.

Nay, but they loved me not; and I

Must needs a stranger be,

Whose every exiled day gone by

Aches with their memory.

WHERE?

Where is my love—

In silence and shadow she lies,

Under the April-grey, calm waste of the skies;

And a bird above,

In the darkness tender and clear,

Keeps saying over and over, Love lies here!

Not that she's dead;

Only her soul is flown

Out of its last pure earthly mansion;

And cries instead

In the darkness, tender and clear,

Like the voice of a bird in the leaves, Love—love lies here.

MUSIC UNHEARD

Sweet sounds, begone—

Whose music on my ear

Stirs foolish discontent

Of lingering here;

When, if I crossed

The crystal verge of death,

Him I should see

Who these sounds murmureth.

Sweet sounds, begone—

Ask not my heart to break

Its bond of bravery for

Sweet quiet's sake;

Lure not my feet

To leave the path they must

Tread on, unfaltering,

Till I sleep in dust.

Sweet sounds, begone:

Though silence brings apace

Deadly disquiet

Of this homeless place;

And all I love

In beauty cries to me,

'We but vain shadows

And reflections be.'

ALL THAT'S PAST

Very old are the woods;

And the buds that break

Out of the briar's boughs,

When March winds wake,

So old with their beauty are—

Oh, no man knows

Through what wild centuries

Roves back the rose.

Very old are the brooks;

And the rills that rise

Where snow sleeps cold beneath

The azure skies

Sing such a history

Of come and gone,

Their every drop is as wise

As Solomon.

Very old are we men;

Our dreams are tales

Told in dim Eden

By Eve's nightingales;

We wake and whisper awhile,

But, the day gone by,

Silence and sleep like fields

Of amaranth lie.

WHEN THE ROSE IS FADED

When the rose is faded,

Memory may still dwell on

Her beauty shadowed,

And the sweet smell gone.

That vanishing loveliness,

That burdening breath

No bond of life hath then

Nor grief of death.

'Tis the immortal thought

Whose passion still

Makes of the changing

The unchangeable.

Oh, thus thy beauty,

Loveliest on earth to me,

Dark with no sorrow, shines

And burns, with Thee.

SLEEP

Men all, and birds, and creeping beasts,

When the dark of night is deep,

From the moving wonder of their lives

Commit themselves to sleep.

Without a thought, or fear, they shut

The narrow gates of sense;

Heedless and quiet, in slumber turn

Their strength to impotence.

The transient strangeness of the earth

Their spirits no more see:

Within a silent gloom withdrawn,

They slumber in secrecy.

Two worlds they have—a globe forgot

Wheeling from dark to light;

And all the enchanted realm of dream

That burgeons out of night.

THE STRANGER

Half-hidden in a graveyard,

In the blackness of a yew,

Where never living creature stirs,

Nor sunbeam pierces through,

Is a tombstone green and crooked,

Its faded legend gone,

And but one rain-worn cherub's head

To sing of the unknown.

There, when the dusk is falling,

Silence broods so deep

It seems that every wind that breathes

Blows from the fields of sleep?

Day breaks in heedless beauty,

Kindling each drop of dew,

But unforsaking shadow dwells

Beneath this lonely yew.

And, all else lost and faded,

Only this listening head

Keeps with a strange unanswering smile

Its secret with the dead.

NEVER MORE, SAILOR

Never more, Sailor,

Shalt thou be

Tossed on the wind-ridden,

Restless sea.

Its tides may labour;

All the world

Shake 'neath that weight

Of waters hurled:

But its whole shock

Can only stir

Thy dust to a quiet

Even quieter.

Thou mock'd'st at land

Who now art come

To such a small

And shallow home;

Yet bore the sea

Full many a care

For bones that once

A sailor's were.

And though the grave's

Deep soundlessness

Thy once sea-deafened

Ear distress,

No robin ever

On the deep

Hopped with his song

To haunt thy sleep.

THE WITCH

Weary went the old Witch,

Weary of her pack,

She sat her down by the churchyard wall,

And jerked it off her back.

The cord brake, yes, the cord brake,

Just where the dead did lie,

And Charms and Spells and Sorceries

Spilled out beneath the sky.

Weary was the old Witch;

She rested her old eyes

From the lantern-fruited yew trees,

And the scarlet of the skies;

And out the dead came stumbling,

From every rift and crack,

Silent as moss, and plundered

The gaping pack.

They wish them, three times over,

Away they skip full soon:

Bat and Mole and Leveret,

Under the rising moon;

Owl and Newt and Nightjar:

They take their shapes and creep,

Silent as churchyard lichen,

While she squats asleep.

All of these dead were stirring:

Each unto each did call,

'A Witch, a Witch is sleeping

Under the churchyard wall;

'A Witch, a Witch is sleeping....'

The shrillness ebbed away;

And up the way-worn moon clomb bright,

Hard on the track of day.

She shone, high, wan and silvery;

Day's colours paled and died:

And, save the mute and creeping worm,

Nought else was there beside.

Names may be writ; and mounds rise;

Purporting, Here be bones:

But empty is that churchyard

Of all save stones.

Owl and Newt and Nightjar,

Leveret, Bat and Mole

Haunt and call in the twilight,

Where she slept, poor soul.

ARABIA

Far are the shades of Arabia,

Where the Princes ride at noon,

'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets,

Under the ghost of the moon;

And so dark is that vaulted purple

Flowers in the forest rise

And toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars

Pale in the noonday skies.

Sweet is the music of Arabia

In my heart, when out of dreams

I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn

Descry her gliding streams;

Hear her strange lutes on the green banks

Ring loud with the grief and delight

Of the dim-silked, dark-haired Musicians

In the brooding silence of night.

They haunt me—her lutes and her forests;

No beauty on earth I see

But shadowed with that dream recalls

Her loveliness to me:

Still eyes look coldly upon me,

Cold voices whisper and say—

'He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia,

They have stolen his wits away.'

THE MOUNTAINS

Still, and blanched, and cold, and lone,

The icy hills far off from me

With frosty ulys overgrown

Stand in their sculptured secrecy.

No path of theirs the chamois fleet

Treads, with a nostril to the wind;

O'er their ice-marbled glaciers beat

No wings of eagles in my mind—

Yea, in my mind these mountains rise,

Their perils dyed with evening's rose;

And still my ghost sits at my eyes

And thirsts for their untroubled snows.

QUEEN DJENIRA

When Queen Djenira slumbers through

The sultry noon's repose,

From out her dreams, as soft she lies,

A faint thin music flows.

Her lovely hands lie narrow and pale

With gilded nails, her head

Couched in its banded nets of gold

Lies pillowed on her bed.

The little Nubian boys who fan

Her cheeks and tresses clear,

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful voices

Seem afar to hear.

They slide their eyes, and nodding, say,

'Queen Djenira walks to-day

The courts of the lord Pthamasar

Where the sweet birds of Psuthys are.'

And those of earth about her porch

Of shadow cool and grey

Their sidelong beaks in silence lean,

And silent flit away.

NEVER-TO-BE

Down by the waters of the sea,

Reigns the King of Never-to-be.

His palace walls are black with night;

His torches star and moonès light,

And for his timepiece deep and grave

Beats on the green unhastening wave.

Windswept are his high corridors;

His pleasance the sea-mantled shores;

For sentinel a shadow stands

With hair in heaven, and cloudy hands;

And round his bed, king's guards to be,

Watch pines in iron solemnity.

His hound is mute; his steed at will

Roams pastures deep with asphodel;

His queen is to her slumber gone;

His courtiers mute lie, hewn in stone;

He hath forgot where he did hide

His sceptre in the mountain-side.

Grey-capped and muttering, mad is he—

The childless King of Never-to-be;

For all his people in the deep

Keep everlasting fast asleep;

And all his realm is foam and rain,

Whispering of what comes not again.

THE DARK CHATEAU

In dreams a dark château

Stands ever open to me,

In far ravines dream-waters flow,

Descending soundlessly;

Above its peaks the eagle floats,

Lone in a sunless sky;

Mute are the golden woodland throats

Of the birds flitting by.

No voice is audible. The wind

Sleeps in its peace.

No flower of the light can find

Refuge 'neath its trees;

Only the darkening ivy climbs

Mingled with wilding rose,

And cypress, morn and evening, time's

Black shadow throws.

All vacant, and unknown;

Only the dreamer steps

From stone to hollow stone,

Where the green moss sleeps,

Peers at the river in its deeps,

The eagle lone in the sky,

While the dew of evening drips,

Coldly and silently.

Would that I could press in!—

Into each secret room;

Would that my sleep-bright eyes could win

To the inner gloom;

Gaze from its high windows,

Far down its mouldering walls,

Where amber-clear still Lethe flows,

And foaming falls.

But ever as I gaze,

From slumber soft doth come

Some touch my stagnant sense to raise

To its old earthly home;

Fades then that sky serene;

And peak of ageless snow;

Fades to a paling dawn-lit green,

My dark château.

THE DWELLING-PLACE

Deep in a forest where the kestrel screamed,

Beside a lake of water, clear as glass,

The time-worn windows of a stone house gleamed,

Named only 'Alas.'

Yet happy as the wild birds in the glades

Of that green forest, thridding the still air

With low continued heedless serenades,

Its heedless people were.

The throbbing chords of violin and lute,

The lustre of lean tapers in dark eyes,

Fair colours, beauteous flowers, dainty fruit

Made earth seem Paradise

To them that dwelt within this lonely house:

Like children of the gods in lasting peace,

They ate, sang, danced, as if each day's carouse

Need never pause, nor cease.

Some might cry, Vanity! to a weeping lyre,

Some in that deep pool mock their longings vain,

Came yet at last long silence to the wire,

And dark did dark remain.

Some to the hunt would wend, with hound and horn,

And clash of silver, beauty, bravery, pride,

Heeding not one who on white horse upborne

With soundless hoofs did ride.

Dreamers there were who watched the hours away

Beside a fountain's foam. And in the sweet

Of phantom evening, 'neath the night-bird's lay,

Did loved with loved-one meet.

All, all were children, for, the long day done,

They barred the heavy door 'gainst lightfoot fear;

And few words spake though one known face was gone,

Yet still seemed hovering near.

They heaped the bright fire higher; poured dark wine;

And in long revelry dazed the questioning eye;

Curtained three-fold the heart-dismaying shine

Of midnight streaming by.

They shut the dark out from the painted wall,

With candles dared the shadow at the door,

Sang down the faint reiterated call

Of those who came no more.

Yet clear above that portal plain was writ,

Confronting each at length alone to pass

Out of its beauty into night star-lit,

That worn 'Alas!'

THE LISTENERS

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest's ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller's head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

'Is there anybody there?' he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller's call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

'Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

'Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,' he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

TIME PASSES

There was nought in the Valley

But a Tower of Ivory,

Its base enwreathed with red

Flowers that at evening

Caught the sun's crimson

As to Ocean low he sped.

Lucent and lovely

It stood in the morning

Under a trackless hill;

With snows eternal

Muffling its summit,

And silence ineffable.

Sighing of solitude

Winds from the cold heights

Haunted its yellowing stone;

At noon its shadow

Stretched athwart cedars

Whence every bird was flown.

Its stair was broken,

Its starlit walls were

Fretted; its flowers shone

Wide at the portal,

Full-blown and fading,

Their last faint fragrance gone.

And on high in its lantern

A shape of the living

Watched o'er a shoreless sea,

From a Tower rotting

With age and weakness,

Once lovely as ivory.

BEWARE!

An ominous bird sang from its branch,

'Beware, O Wanderer!

Night 'mid her flowers of glamourie spilled

Draws swiftly near:

'Night with her darkened caravans,

Piled deep with silver and myrrh,

Draws from the portals of the East,

O Wanderer near!

'Night who walks plumèd through the fields

Of stars that strangely stir—

Smitten to fire by the sandals of him

Who walks with her.'

THE JOURNEY

Heart-sick of his journey was the Wanderer;

Footsore and sad was he;

And a Witch who long had lurked by the wayside,

Looked out of sorcery.

'Lift up your eyes, you lonely Wanderer,'

She peeped from her casement small;

'Here's shelter and quiet to give you rest, young man,

And apples for thirst withal.'

And he looked up out of his sad reverie,

And saw all the woods in green,

With birds that flitted feathered in the dappling,

The jewel-bright leaves between.

And he lifted up his face towards her lattice,

And there, alluring-wise,

Slanting through the silence of the long past,

Dwelt the still green Witch's eyes.

And vaguely from the hiding-place of memory

Voices seemed to cry;

'What is the darkness of one brief life-time

To the deaths thou hast made us die?

'Heed not the words of the Enchantress

Who would us still betray!'

And sad with the echo of their reproaches,

Doubting, he turned away.

'I may not shelter 'neath your roof, lady,

Nor in this wood's green shadow seek repose,

Nor will your apples quench the thirst

A homesick wanderer knows.'

'"Homesick," forsooth!' she softly mocked him:

And the beauty in her face

Made in the sunshine pale and trembling

A stillness in that place.

And he sighed, as if in fear, the young Wanderer,

Looking to left and to right,

Where the endless narrow road swept onward,

In the distance lost to sight.

And there fell upon his sense the briar,

Haunting the air with its breath,

And the faint shrill sweetness of the birds' throats,

Their tent of leaves beneath.

And there was the Witch, in no wise heeding;

Her arbour, and fruit-filled dish,

Her pitcher of well-water, and clear damask—

All that the weary wish.

And the last gold beam across the green world

Faltered and failed, as he

Remembered his solitude and the dark night's

Inhospitality.

His shoulders were bowed with his knapsack;

His staff trailed heavy in the dust;

His eyes were dazed, and hopeless of the white road

Which tread all pilgrims must.

And he looked upon the Witch with eyes of sorrow

In the darkening of the day;

And turned him aside into oblivion;

And the voices died away....

And the Witch stepped down from her casement:

In the hush of night he heard

The calling and wailing in dewy thicket

Of bird to hidden bird.

And gloom stole all her burning crimson;

Remote and faint in space

As stars in gathering shadow of the evening

Seemed now her phantom face.

And one night's rest shall be a myriad,

Midst dreams that come and go;

Till heedless fate, unmoved by weakness, bring him

This same strange by-way through:

To the beauty of earth that fades in ashes,

The lips of welcome, and the eyes

More beauteous than the feeble shine of Hesper

Lone in the lightening skies:

Till once again the Witch's guile entreat him;

But, worn with wisdom, he

Steadfast and cold shall choose the dark night's

Inhospitality.

HAUNTED

The rabbit in his burrow keeps

No guarded watch, in peace he sleeps;

The wolf that howls into the night

Cowers to her lair at morning light;

The simplest bird entwines a nest

Where she may lean her lovely breast,

Couched in the silence of the bough;

But thou, O man, what rest hast thou?

The deepest solitude can bring

Only a subtler questioning

In thy divided heart; thy bed

Recalls at dawn what midnight said;

Seek how thou wilt to feign content

Thy flaming ardour's quickly spent;

Soon thy last company is gone,

And leaves thee—with thyself—alone.

Pomp and great friends may hem thee round,

A thousand busy tasks be found;

Earth's thronging beauties may beguile

Thy longing lovesick heart awhile;

And pride, like clouds of sunset, spread

A changing glory round thy head;

But fade will all; and thou must come,

Hating thy journey, homeless, home.

Rave how thou wilt; unmoved, remote,

That inward presence slumbers not,

Frets out each secret from thy breast,

Gives thee no rally, pause, nor rest,

Scans close thy very thoughts, lest they

Should sap his patient power away,

Answers thy wrath with peace, thy cry

With tenderest taciturnity.

SILENCE

With changeful sound life beats upon the ear;

Yet striving for release

The most delighting string's

Sweet jargonings,

The happiest throat's

Most easeful, lovely notes

Fall back into a veiling silentness.

Even 'mid the rumour of a moving host,

Blackening the clear green earth,

Vainly 'gainst that thin wall

The trumpets call,

Or with loud hum

The smoke-bemuffled drum:

From that high quietness no reply comes forth.

When all at peace, two friends at ease alone

Talk out their hearts,—yet still,

Between the grace-notes of

The voice of love

From each to each

Trembles a rarer speech,

And with its presence every pause doth fill.

Unmoved it broods, this all-encompassing hush

Of one who stooping near,

No smallest stir will make

Our fear to wake;

But yet intent

Upon some mystery bent,

Hearkens the lightest word we say, or hear.

WINTER DUSK

Dark frost was in the air without,

The dusk was still with cold and gloom,

When less than even a shadow came

And stood within the room.

But of the three around the fire,

None turned a questioning head to look,

Still read a clear voice, on and on,

Still stooped they o'er their book.

The children watched their mother's eyes

Moving on softly line to line;

It seemed to listen too—that shade,

Yet made no outward sign.

The fire-flames crooned a tiny song,

No cold wind moved the wintry tree;

The children both in Faërie dreamed

Beside their mother's knee.

And nearer yet that spirit drew

Above that heedless one, intent

Only on what the simple words

Of her small story meant.

No voiceless sorrow grieved her mind,

No memory her bosom stirred,

Nor dreamed she, as she read to two,

'Twas surely three who heard.

Yet when, the story done, she smiled

From face to face, serene and clear,

A love, half dread, sprang up, as she

Leaned close and drew them near.

AGES AGO

Launcelot loved Guinevere,

Ages and ages ago,

Beautiful as a bird was she,

Preening its wings in a cypress tree,

Happy in sadness, she and he,

They loved each other so.

Helen of Troy was beautiful

As tender flower in May,

Her loveliness from the towers looked down,

With the sweet moon for silver crown,

Over the walls of Troy Town,

Hundreds of years away.

Cleopatra, Egypt's Queen,

Was wondrous kind to ken,

As when the stars in the dark sky

Like buds on thorny branches lie,

So seemed she too to Antony,

That age-gone prince of men.

The Pyramids are old stones,

Scarred is that grey face,

That by the greenness of Old Nile

Gazes with an unchanging smile,

Man with all mystery to beguile

And give his thinking grace.

HOME

Rest, rest—there is no rest,

Until the quiet grave

Comes with its narrow arch

The heart to save

From life's long cankering rust,

From torpor, cold and still—

The loveless, saddened dust,

The jaded will.

And yet, be far the hour

Whose haven calls me home;

Long be the arduous day

Till evening come;

What sureness now remains

But that through livelong strife

Only the loser gains

An end to life?

Then in the soundless deep

Of even the shallowest grave

Childhood and love he'll keep,

And his soul save;

All vext desire, all vain

Cries of a conflict done

Fallen to rest again;

Death's refuge won.

THE GHOST

Peace in thy hands,

Peace in thine eyes,

Peace on thy brow;

Flower of a moment in the eternal hour,

Peace with me now.

Not a wave breaks,

Not a bird calls,

My heart, like a sea,

Silent after a storm that hath died,

Sleeps within me.

All the night's dews,

All the world's leaves,

All winter's snow

Seem with their quiet to have stilled in life's dream

All sorrowing now.

AN EPITAPH

Here lies a most beautiful lady,

Light of step and heart was she;

I think she was the most beautiful lady

That ever was in the West Country.

But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;

However rare—rare it be;

And when I crumble, who will remember

This lady of the West Country?

'THE HAWTHORN HATH A DEATHLY SMELL'

The flowers of the field

Have a sweet smell;

Meadowsweet, tansy, thyme,

And faint-heart pimpernel;

But sweeter even than these,

The silver of the may

Wreathed is with incense for

The Judgment Day.

An apple, a child, dust,

When falls the evening rain,

Wild briar's spicèd leaves,

Breathe memories again;

With further memory fraught,

The silver of the may

Wreathed is with incense for

The Judgment Day.

Eyes of all loveliness—

Shadow of strange delight,

Even as a flower fades

Must thou from sight;

But oh, o'er thy grave's mound,

Till come the Judgment Day,

Wreathed shall with incense be

Thy sharp-thorned may.

The Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged, of

THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE

COMPILED BY

BURTON E. STEVENSON

has been revised from end to end—590 poems have been added, pages renumbered, author, title, and first line indices, and the biographical matter corrected, etc., etc.

The hundreds of letters from readers and poets suggesting additions or corrections as well as the columns of reviews of the first edition have been considered. Poets who were chary of lending their support to an unknown venture have now generously permitted the use of their work.

This edition includes the "new" poets such as MASEFIELD, CHESTERTON, FROST, RUPERT BROOKE, DE LA MARE, RALPH HODGSON, etc.

"A collection so complete and distinguished that it is difficult to find any other approaching it sufficiently for comparison."—New York Times Book Review on the first edition.

India Paper, 4,096 pages

Cloth, one volume,

Cloth, two volumes,

Half Morocco, one volume,

Half Morocco, two volumes,

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE

By ROMAIN ROLLAND

Translated from the French by GILBERT CANNAN. In three volumes, each $1.50 net.

This great trilogy, the life story of a musician, at first the sensation of musical circles in Paris, has come to be one of the most discussed books among literary circles in France, England and America.

Each volume of the American edition has its own individual interest, can be understood without the other, and comes to a definite conclusion.

The three volumes with the titles of the French volumes included are:

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE

DAWN—MORNING—YOUTH—REVOLT

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE IN PARIS

THE MARKET PLACE—ANTOINETTE—THE HOUSE

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: JOURNEY'S END

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP—THE BURNING BUSH—THE NEW DAWN

Some Noteworthy Comments

"'Hats off, gentlemen—a genius.' · One may mention 'Jean-Christophe' in the same breath with Balzac's 'Lost Illusions'; it is as big as that. · It is moderate praise to call it with Edmund Gosse 'the noblest work of fiction of the twentieth century'. · A book as big, as elemental, as original as though the art of fiction began to-day. · We have nothing comparable in English literature. · "—Springfield Republican.

"If a man wishes to understand those devious currents which make up the great, changing sea of modern life, there is hardly a single book more illustrative, more informing and more inspiring."—Current Opinion.

"Must rank as one of the very few important works of fiction of the last decade. A vital compelling work. We who love it feel that it will live."—Independent.

"The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or from any other European country, in a decade."—Boston Transcript.

A 32-page booklet about Romain Rolland and Jean-Christophe, with portraits and complete reviews, on request.

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

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Table of Contents

THE LISTENERS AND OTHER POEMS

CONTENTS

THE THREE CHERRY TREES

OLD SUSAN

OLD BEN

MISS LOO

THE TAILOR

MARTHA

THE SLEEPER

THE KEYS OF MORNING

RACHEL

ALONE

THE BELLS

THE SCARECROW

NOD

THE BINDWEED

WINTER

THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY

NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER

ESTRANGED

THE TIRED CUPID

DREAMS

FAITHLESS

THE SHADE

BE ANGRY NOW NO MORE

SPRING

EXILE

WHERE?

MUSIC UNHEARD

ALL THAT'S PAST

WHEN THE ROSE IS FADED

SLEEP

THE STRANGER

NEVER MORE, SAILOR

THE WITCH

ARABIA

THE MOUNTAINS

QUEEN DJENIRA

NEVER-TO-BE

THE DARK CHATEAU

THE DWELLING-PLACE

THE LISTENERS

TIME PASSES

BEWARE!

THE JOURNEY

HAUNTED

SILENCE

WINTER DUSK

AGES AGO

HOME

THE GHOST

AN EPITAPH

'THE HAWTHORN HATH A DEATHLY SMELL'

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE