Sometimes a horrible marionette
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hen, turning to my love, I said,‘The dead are dancing with the dead,The dust is whirling with the dust.’ But she—she heard the violin,And left my side, and entered in:Love passed into the house of lust. Then suddenly the tune went false,The dancers wearied of the waltz,The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. And down the long and silent street,The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,Crept like a frightened girl. FROM ‘THE BURDEN OF ITYS’ THIS English Thames is holier far than Rome,Those harebells like a sudden flush of seaBreaking across the woodland, with the foamOf meadow-sweet and white anemoneTo fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier thereThan hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear! Those violet-gleaming butterflies that takeYon creamy lily for their pavilionAre monsignores, and where the rushes shakeA lazy pike lies basking in the sun,His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred oldBishop in _partibus_! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold. The wind the restless prisoner of the treesDoes well for Palæstrina, one would sayThe mighty master’s hands were on the keysOf the Maria organ, which they playWhen early on some sapphire Easter mornIn a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne From his dark House out to the BalconyAbove the bronze gates and the crowded square,Whose very fountains seem for ecstasyTo toss their silver lances in the air,And stretching out weak hands to East and WestIn vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest. Is not yon lingering orange after-glowThat stays to vex the moon more fair than allRome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year agoI knelt before some crimson CardinalWho bare the Host across the Esquiline,And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine. The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulousWith the last shower, sweeter perfume bringThrough this cool evening than the odorousFlame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine. Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the MassWere out of tune now, for a small brown birdSings overhead, and through the long cool grassI see that throbbing throat which once I heardOn starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea. Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eavesAt daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leavesHer little lonely bed, and carols blitheTo see the heavy-lowing cattle waitStretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate. And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling beesThat round and round the linden blossoms play;And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall, And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the springWhile the last violet loiters by the well,And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis singThe song of Linus through a sunny dellOf warm Arcadia where the corn is goldAnd the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold. * * * * * It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,And from the copse left desolate and bareFled is young Bacchus with his revelry,Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody So sad, that one might think a human heartBrake in each separate note, a qualityWhich music sometimes has, being the ArtWhich is most nigh to tears and memory;Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here, Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,No woven web of bloody heraldries,But mossy dells for roving comrades made,Warm valleys where the tired student liesWith half-shut book, and many a winding walkWhere rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk. The harmless rabbit gambols with its youngAcross the trampled towing-path, where lateA troop of laughing boys in jostling throngCheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines outWhere the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flockBack to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shoutComes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill. The heron passes homeward to the mere,The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,Gold world by world the silent stars appear,And like a blossom blown before the breezeA white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody. She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,She knows Endymion is not far away;’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reedWhich has no message of its own to play,So pipes another’s bidding, it is I,Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery. Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trillAbout the sombre woodland seems to clingDying in music, else the air is still,So still that one might hear the bat’s small wingWander and wheel above the pines, or tellEach tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell. And far away across the lengthening wold,Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous goldMarks the long High Street of the little town,And warns me to return; I must not wait,Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.
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