Sorrow
   
       
Why does the thin grey strand      
Floating up from the forgotten      
Cigarette between my fingers,      
Why does it trouble me?
         
Ah, you will understand;           5   
When I carried my mother downstairs,      
A few times only, at the beginning      
Of her soft-foot malady,
      
I should find, for a reprimand      
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs           10   
On the breast of my coat; and one by one      
I let them float up the dark chimney.

Dolor of Autumn
   
    
The acrid scents of autumn,      
Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear      
Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn      
And the snore of the night in my ear.
         
For suddenly, flush-fallen,           5   
All my life, in a rush      
Of shedding away, has left me      
Naked, exposed on the bush.
         
I, on the bush of the globe,      
Like a newly-naked berry, shrink           10   
Disclosed: but I also am prowling      
As well in the scents that slink
         
Abroad: I in this naked berry      
Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush;      
And I in the stealthy, brindled odours           15   
Prowling about the lush
         
And acrid night of autumn;      
My soul, along with the rout,      
Rank and treacherous, prowling,      
Disseminated out.           20
      
For the night, with a great breath intaken,      
Has taken my spirit outside      
Me, till I reel with disseminated consciousness,      
Like a man who has died.
         
At the same time I stand exposed           25   
Here on the bush of the globe,      
A newly-naked berry of flesh      
For the stars to probe.

The Inheritance
   
    
Since you did depart      
Out of my reach, my darling,      
Into the hidden,      
I see each shadow start      
With recognition, and I           5   
Am wonder-ridden.
         
I am dazed with the farewell,      
But I scarcely feel your loss.      
You left me a gift      
Of tongues, so the shadows tell           10   
Me things, and silences toss      
Me their drift.
         
You sent me a cloven fire      
Out of death, and it burns in the draught      
Of the breathing hosts,           15   
Kindles the darkening pyre      
For the sorrowful, till strange brands waft      
Like candid ghosts.
         
Form after form, in the streets      
Waves like a ghost along,           20   
Kindled to me;      
The star above the house-top greets      
Me every eve with a long      
Song fierily.
         
All day long, the town           25   
Glimmers with subtle ghosts      
Going up and down      
In a common, prison-like dress;      
But their daunted looking flickers      
To me, and I answer, Yes!           30
      
So I am not lonely nor sad      
Although bereaved of you,      
My little love.      
I move among a kinsfolk clad      
With words, but the dream shows through           35   
As they move.

Silence
   
    
Since I lost you I am silence-haunted,      
  Sounds wave their little wings      
A moment, then in weariness settle      
  On the flood that soundless swings.
         
Whether the people in the street           5   
  Like pattering ripples go by,      
Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs      
  With a loud, hoarse sigh:
         
Or the wind shakes a ravel of light      
  Over the dead-black river,           10   
Or night’s last echoing      
  Makes the daybreak shiver:
         
I feel the silence waiting      
  To take them all up again      
In its vast completeness, enfolding           15   
  The sound of men.

Listening
   
    
I listen to the stillness of you,      
  My dear, among it all;      
I feel your silence touch my words as I talk,      
  And take them in thrall.
         
My words fly off a forge           5   
  The length of a spark;      
I see the night-sky easily sip them      
  Up in the dark.
         
The lark sings loud and glad,      
  Yet I am not loth           10   
That silence should take the song and the bird      
  And lose them both.
         
A train goes roaring south,      
  The steam-flag flying;      
I see the stealthy shadow of silence           15   
  Alongside going.
         
And off the forge of the world,      
  Whirling in the draught of life,      
Go sparks of myriad people, filling      
  The night with strife.           20
      
Yet they never change the darkness      
  Or blench it with noise;      
Alone on the perfect silence   
  The stars are buoys.

Brooding Grief

   
A yellow leaf from the darkness      
Hops like a frog before me.      
Why should I start and stand still?
         
I was watching the woman that bore me      
Stretched in the brindled darkness           5   
Of the sick-room, rigid with will      
To die: and the quick leaf tore me      
Back to this rainy swill      
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me

Lotus Hurt by the Cold
   
    
How many times, like lotus lilies risen   
  Upon the surface of a river, there      
  Have risen floating on my blood the rare      
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.
         
So I am clothed all over with the light           5   
  And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;      
  Till naked for her in the finest fashion      
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.
         
And then I offer all myself unto      
  This woman who likes to love me: but she turns           10   
  A look of hate upon the flower that burns      
To break and pour her out its precious dew.
         
And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,      
  And all the lotus buds of love sink over      
  To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,           15   
Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.
      
 

Malade
   
   
The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window      
The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane,      
As a little wind comes in.      
The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd      
Scooped out and dry, where a spider,           5   
Folded in its legs as in a bed,      
Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see but twilight and walls.
         
And if the day outside were mine! What is the day      
But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths hanging      
Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly from them           10   
Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over      
The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the floor of the cave!      
I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.
         
But somewhere birds, beside a lake of light, spread wings      
Larger than the largest fans, and rise in a stream upwards           15   
And upwards on the sunlight that rains invisible,      
So that the birds are like one wafted feather,      
Small and ecstatic suspended over a vast spread country.

Liaison
   
   
A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,      
  Star-spiders spinning their thread      
Hang high suspended, withouten respite      
  Watching us overhead.
         
Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths           5   
  Curtain us in so dark      
That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s      
  Flitting remark.
         
Here in this swarthy, secret tent,      
  Where black boughs flap the ground,           10   
You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,      
  Surgeon me sound.
         
This rare, rich night! For in here      
  Under the yew-tree tent      
The darkness is loveliest where I could sear           15   
  You like frankincense into scent.
         
Here not even the stars can spy us,      
 Not even the white moths write      
With their little pale signs on the wall, to try us      
  And set us affright.           20
   
Kiss but then the dust from off my lips,      
  But draw the turgid pain      
From my breast to your bosom, eclipse      
  My soul again.
         
Waste me not, I beg you, waste           25   
  Not the inner night      
Taste, oh taste and let me taste      
  The core of delight.

Troth with the Dead
   
   
The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon      
Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky;      
The other half of the broken coin of troth      
Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie.      
They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away;           5   
I had pushed it gently in among the thick of her hair      
Where it gathered towards the plait, on that very last day;      
And like a moon in secret it is shining there.
         
My half shines in the sky, for a general sign      
If the troth with the dead I pledged myself to keep;           10   
Turning its broken edge to the dark, it shines indeed      
Like the sign of a lover who turns to the dark of sleep.      
Against my heart the inviolate sleep breaks still      
In darkened waves whose breaking echoes o’er      
The wondering world of my wakeful day, till I’m lost           15   
In the midst of the places I knew so well before.