I saw the year pass in a blaze of light

Beyond the hilltops, where the mist illumed

And burgeoned swiftly, like a smouldering fire

Blown to its ashes. And the night was quick

With trooping ghosts—

Passion and fear and hot desire and strivings—

Pallid and death-chill now, poor derelict outcasts.

And some I cried to for a brief renewal

Of converse, but they turned aside,

Dumb phantoms of the underworld, and escaped me.

Here bleak despair and there delusion cowered;

And here regret with stifled sobbings lurked,

Comfortless still.

And then the new year came

With eyes like stars, her voice a magic singing;

Glad as a child to lead me by the hand

Among the grasses, beside the running waters.

But I remembered all those other years

That came like this with outstretched hands of promise,

That came with beautiful feet across the mountains—

Snatches of their dead song, glimpse of their smiling:

They all had passed to this same shrinking nakedness.

Shall this one be as they?

Defeat and disillusion may be mine

Once more.—Yet come,

New visitant from the dark, and lead me forth

Not haply where I would, but where all great

And profiting things are possible.

Let me go forth believing once again,

And take the outstretched hand and hear the singing.

These are the things I long for when my days are slow:

A mighty water washing in the morning’s glow;

A lonely weeded lakeside or a lipping stream

Where all the rosy radiance of the sundown lies agleam,

Or glimmering when the twilight becomes a pallid flush—

The coolness and the fragrance, the whispering and the hush;

A quiet road that passes where cottages half-seen

Are bowers of bloomy leafage with mossy paths between;

A moor whose stones protruding appear like grazing sheep

Or fade like lurking phantoms when mists of autumn creep;

Great hillsides sloping steeply towards a lapping tide,

Where gorses cluster golden, where heather scatters wide;

A tangled buried byway where Ragged Robins bright

Are thick above the bracken, and starry disks of white;

A meadowland where elders and blossomed thorn are blent

In one delicious mating of beauty and of scent,

Where honeysuckles linger and the hedge’s wilding rose

That cometh with the summer, that with the summer goes;

A bank of flaming poppies, a field of earing corn,

An autumn hedgerow filmy with gossamers of morn;

The harebell, and the primrose that never comes too soon,

The cowslip and the daisy, the buttercups of June;

The violet in the grasses, the early cuckoo’s cry:

These are the things I long for, and must long for till I die.

What of this winter gloom,

To imprison and depress?—

Lo, to my quiet room

Come visitants of the tenderest loveliness.

The joys I once have had

Are mine for ever, though the days are sad.

I hear the old places calling and I go.

Soft summer winds breathe low

Through mazy paths of fragrances and bloom;

The creamy waters wash on Devon sands

Or toss in Cornish caverns; sea-birds cry

From dawn to dusk in harbours of the west.

Wide undulating lands

Where heaven descends with consecrating rest—

Blue bracken’d downs that mate the brooding sky—

The smoke of field-fires through a lovely haze

Of wistful autumn days:

I see them all

And answer to their call,

Here in my quiet room—these wizard ways.

Wherever I go she woos me,

  Her voice for ever calls.

I want no golden city,

  No heaven of jewelled walls,

But just my English homeland

  When misty twilight falls:

The hush of English woodlands,

  The scent of English lanes;

The leaping moorland rivers,

  The downland and the plains—

The harebell and the bracken,

  The lisping summer rains:

The blooming bowery hamlets

  And secret haunts of sleep;

The great and gracious valleys

  Where quiet waters creep;

The spacious seas of sundown,

  The lonely fields of sheep.

Give to the South her vineyards,

  Her skies of cloudless blue;

But England, land of magic,

  God gave the mists to you,

To clothe your hills with beauty

  And let the sun shine through.

I go athirst for ever,

  With dreaming love I go,

From Springtide smiling wistful

  To autumn’s deepening glow;

My land of dear remembrance,

  The Eden that I know.

Mother of clanging town and slumberous hamlet,

Woodside and pasture, tilth and garth and downland—

Welter of traffic, lurking shadowed byways,

                Kirkyard and cottage:

Great is the wind that sweeps thy heathered hillsides,

Tameless the waves that smite thy caverned bases;

Dear is the smallest stream that babbles gliding

                Low through its rushes.

Thine are the paths that lead to hushed seclusions,

Fastness and depth of lonely mystic places;

Vapours of daybreak, flecking clouds of noonday,

                Massings of tempest.

Thine the amaze and poignant pomp of autumn,

Starkness of winter, witchery of the springtides;

Fragrance and glow and pageantry and colour,

                Rainings and bird-song.

Stern and relentless, changeful as a maiden,

Shy as a child, elusive as a phantom:

Sometimes we chide, revile thee—yet in all things

                Loving thee, England.

There comes a stealthy rustle, scarcely heard,

As though a leaf had stirred

In sleep—

Softer than wash of twilight waves that creep

From a reluctant sea;

A thrill of tremulous whisperings that pass

Through bush and grass,

With sliding drops that touch them furtively.

The hush around

Falters as with the phantom of a sound;

And where the path is free

From leafage, pattering footfalls print the ground,

Leaving their tiny dusted pearls to say

That they have passed this way.

Then comes the fuller downpour, and the shower

Reaches to deepest moss and hidden flower;

The raindrops sink

Where thirsting lips can drink

And drink again;

And all the breaths of tree and soil are blent

In one pervading fragrance of content.

O, joy of summer rain.

For thee

Beauty shall be more beautiful, and truth

More true, and love more lovely.

There shall be

A wizard alchemy that perpetuates youth;

And thou shalt find

Joy in the very dust, joy in the wind,

Joy in the trampling sea.

And what thou seest of wonder thou shalt press

To instant service of thy consciousness,

Using it for thine utterance, shaping still

Its purport to thy will.

Moments shall come when seekings shall be crowned

By something partly captured, partly found,

Seen by the flashing bright

As of a secret mirror’s light,

Rifting the sullen veils that darken sight.

O Swan, O swimmer,

Gliding serenely,

Quietly, queenly,

In shade and shimmer;

Through sunlit spaces

And shadowed places;

Wraith of the stream

And the moonlight’s dream—

Stainless as a maiden’s face is,

Pure as the light that lies

Within her eyes;

White as a cloud in April skies.

 

O snow-white swimmer,

Hiding and dreaming,

Gleaming and gliding

Through shade and glimmer—

O swimmer!

Were ye plucked from white swans of the marshland,

  From wild white geese of the plains?

O feathers of weird and bewitchment,

  Were ye plucked in the wind and the rains?

Were ye gathered in magical moonshine

  To a music of wonderful runes—

To a telling of mystical legends

  And strange unforgettable tunes?

Were ye floated in dusk of the owl-light,

  Or shed by the carolling lark?

A scatter of flickering starshine,

  A tangle of gleamings and dark.

O feathers that pillow me nightly,

  Your secret I never can tell;

For I wake in the dawn to forget it,

  And the day makes a mock of your spell.

But the hauntings and lurings for ever

  Are there, like the flow of a stream

That merges the doings of daylight

  In a wizard elusion of dream.

In the drowsing of the dawn,

  Ere its leaping

Through the curtains that were drawn

  For our sleeping—

In the stealthy furtive light

Creeping to the heart of night,

Comes a quiet opening of the gates

  Where our bygone waits.

 

Meet we then companions old,

  With no seeking;

Sealed remembrances unfold

  In their speaking.

Death becomes a thought unknown;

All are living and our own—

All our own the dear remembered things—

  Till the first bird sings.

Ah, dismal sobbing weather

  And weary winds that moan—

Where two set forth together,

  And one goes on alone!

Where two have been together

  And one goes on alone.

Ah, sad returning thither

  Where happier days were known—

Where two have gone together

  And one returns alone—

Where two have walked together,

  And one returns alone.

Long eves of summer weather,

  And songs of haunting tone—

Where two have been together

  And one is left alone:

Where two have dreamed together—

  And one must dream alone.

I saw the golden aureole of the day

  Flame on the forehead of advancing night,

As though the dusk would bear the crown away—

  Dark covetous of light.

But with to-morrow’s morn,

On eastward hills shall flame the light reborn.

Night hath her different glories—stars that gleam

Like diamonds on a coronal of dream,

And tides of blue that wash around the deep

Dim palaces of sleep.

O night, illumined shrine

  Whose gates unfold,

  Thou hast no need to covet sunset-gold,

Who art a chancel of the veiled divine.

Grimly the fog, unbroken by the daybreak,

Sucks the pale light and holds it and absorbs it;

Roadway and path are but a maze of phantoms

  Vanishing ghost-like.

Sometimes there comes an eddy and a thinning;

The clammy woof is stirred and streaked and filmy;

Then with a massing of intenser blackness

  Gather the vapours.

Dense as the reek of smouldering conflagration,

Blind with a blindness darker than the midnight’s;

Never a star to pierce, a breath to lift its

  Pitiless swathings.

So might we find it on the ocean’s floor-way,

Sunk from the glimmering of a faintest sun-gleam;

Fain would we raise our arms and strive and wrestle

  Free from the horror.

It dogs and chokes us in our inmost chambers;

Passage and court are black with its intrusion;

Lights are a mock that dimly show the dripping

  Vaults of entombment.

Time was when man

Groped in his forests, huddled in his caves,

Speechless as beast or bird.

Hunger and primal lustings, terror, pain,

Frenzies of fight, forced inarticulate cries;

Or gentler passion moved, as when a mother

Crooned to her child or with a rapt surrender

Clave to her man.

No deep spake yet to deep, nor thought with thought

Held converse. Yet at times a wondering eye

Would light with hope or brood with gathering dreams,

Glimpses of things that flashed to consciousness

And flashing died; at times a voice would sing

As sings a twilight bird, and in its song

A soul would plead for birth.

                         And the burden grew

Too great for song alone.

The lips of man framed sounds that were distinct

From old indefinite cries.

The past became a memory and the present

A purpose and the future a desire.

Song took to herself a message, and the seer

Began to speak as others could apprehend him.

Far sundered peoples learned communication;

Untutored lispings grew to reasoned speech,

Vain babble passed to converse, and the deeds

Of heroes won their record; myths were wrought,

Tales told, before the night brought hush and slumber.

And as the soul strained upward, with its urging

Came richer moulds for its inheritance,

Giving to spirit body and to thought

More ample voice for its complexities.

 

So from the cry came song, and after song

The word.

And God was with the word—the Word was God.

Descending from the lonely sacred place,

He did not know the gleam was on his face;

He had no heed or thought

Save for the mandate that he brought.

So from the height—

Bearing the reflex of the thing he saw—

Thinking he brought the Law

He brought the Light.

If in the paths of night

  Thou meet with one

Whose eyes are wells of light,

  Whose face a sun,

 

Knowing him for thy lord,

  Be it thine to yield;

Giving to him thy sword,

  To him thy shield.

 

Lay thou thy hand in his

  Though pride be loth,

Speaking the word that is

  Thine utmost troth.

 

Emptied the soul must be,

  That it may fill

From the great treasury

  That is his will.

 

Kneel then, surrendering

  Thy baffled soul,

That the poor shrunken thing

  May be made whole.

If I deserted where I should have stayed,

If when I should have hasted I delayed,

No parleyings can evade

The slow dispiritment of my disgrace;

From my own soul I turn away my face.

Then let me stand without revolt or cry,

Grim with a fear that is too proud to fly

And therefore must defy;

Ready to face an issue that shall meet

Disaster or survival—not defeat.

They went from me like vessels winged with sunshine;

  On a far quest they steered into the light;

With gilded sails they stood away and vanished

  Beyond the night.

But now like derelicts they crawl to harbour,

  Battered and warped, with spars and timbers old.

Yet may I find in some deserted cabin

  Ingots of gold.

How shall we sing?—By waters that are strange,

In days of harrowing change

From that sweet witchery of the season’s prime

To this distempered time?—

Shadowed and sad the paths by which we range

Towards the westering sun;

Painful the climb

To heights from which no heartening views are won.

In these dull ways forgetful of their Spring,

How shall we sing?

By the stream whose fount is tears,

Through this unstayed privation of the years—

How shall we sing?

Yet there are those who find the river of God

Wherever they may be,

Whatever paths of exile they have trod.

They heap memorial mounds with patient hands

Desirously,

Their hope and their remembrance to prolong;

And by whatever waters, in all lands,

Sing the Lord’s song.

Not to the cry of panic will the gate

Of sanctuary be opened. Only they

Who by their own frequenting know the way

Can find it, soon or late,

Winning its refuge from a world’s dismay.

But they who never sought

Its peace in prospering hours

Find it not easily when the storm-cloud lowers.

Not in a moment are the great things won,

Nor to be cheaply bought.

The race must still be run.

O spirit, stricken with a sudden stress,

Driven to the wilderness

With no equipment for the desolate way.

It may be thou shalt find

No shelter from the ruthless buffeting wind,

No comfort in the grim calamitous day.

Yet humble thee to patience; learn to pray.

Haply, there is a chance,

The blessed haven of deliverance

May yet reveal its path, and thou shalt win

The peace that bides therein,

And hear the birds, and see the sunlight’s glow

On pastures where the living waters flow.

Not in the upper room,

The quiet place

Where softened lights illume

Love’s face,

Can all familiarly recline,

Taking the bread, the wine.

There are who fear

To come so near,

Too stricken by their own unworthiness.

But in the crowded way

At times, with its distractions and dismay,

They are aware of One who passes by,

Hid in the press;

And timidly they try

To reach unseen the presence that shall bless,

Soothing the sorrow, hallowing the stress.

They cannot dare

To climb that upper stair.

It is enough for them

To touch the garment’s hem.

We pass; the door is closed. And yet there stays

Something that does not go with us,

Some effluence of old days

That gives to them a life continuous.

More than we know

Remains when we have closed the door—

Ah, so much more

That will not go.

Strivings of spirit, toil and human pain,

Vision and dream

Remain

In the bare chambers where the moonlight’s beam

Glides, or the sunset stain.

And they who come shall feel, they know not why,

This lingering of a time gone by,

This secret flowing on

From us though we have gone;

And they will guess

What manner of life we knew,

Passioned or peaceful, counterfeit or true,

Or what high seas of storm we battled through.

We leave things great and less

For others to find;

And yet—we leave not all behind.

There is no-one in the house—but I myself;

No creaking of the stair—but that will come

If I wait long enough and do not listen:

No empty house but has its creaking stair.

There is no wind to stir the listless curtain

With a similitude of life;

Each vacant room sends something to the stillness.

My door is closed; no visitor will come,

No friend whom I await;—and yet I know not.

Guests there may be that seek us uninvited,

Or come again after we have dismissed them.

Silence and loneliness steal through the passage

From each deserted chamber,

And they may summon other visitants.

              How do I know

That there is no-one in the house?

Forth to the dark—

Forth from the dull inglorious rest,

The tyranny of a thing possess’d;

Follow the shadow—let the substance stay

For some complacent day.

’Tis time to seek for other gods and hark

To other voices—free

For some imperilling quest,

Steer by strange stars across a chartless sea.

Year after year we tread our destined way,

  And see and love and learn;

Led by a law that sanctions no delay

  And no return.

And then because the burden would be such

  As no tired heart could keep,

Time with his tenderly benumbing touch

  Beckons to sleep;

Sleep with the lips that hush, the hand that laves

  In cool oblivious stream—

Sleep with the murmur of retreating waves

  From shores of dream.

O years, ye have taken so much,

  Pillaged and ravaged and reft—

Nothing remains but to seek

  The unchangeable things that are left:

The thrilling of life that is near,

  The stillness of life that is far,

The measureless will of the winds,

  The passionless peace of the star.

And my spirit shall be reborn

  With a miracle of increase,

When I take from the winds their passion

  And learn of the stars their peace.

I have stayed too long in the lowlands,

  Lapped in their murmurous dreams;

I have drunk my fill of their beauty,

  Their lovely lingering streams;

With ever the lull of contentment

  And never the sting of fears,

With ever the languor of slumbers

  And never the hallow of tears.

Let me go to the uplands straightway

  With the winds of heaven on my cheek,

And the strength of the hills shall absolve me,

  The voice of the hills shall speak.