I. 1905–1908   
10. The Song of the Pilgrims   
     
(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)


WHAT light of unremembered skies      
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,      
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find?…      
A certain odour on the wind,      
Thy hidden face beyond the west,           5   
These things have called us; on a quest      
Older than any road we trod,      
More endless than desire.…      
  Far God,      
Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills          10   
The soul with longing for dim hills      
And faint horizons! For there come      
Grey moments of the antient dumb      
Sickness of travel, when no song      
Can cheer us; but the way seems long;          15   
And one remembers.…      
  Ah! the beat      
Of weary unreturning feet,      
And songs of pilgrims unreturning!…      
The fires we left are always burning          20   
On the old shrines of home. Our kin      
Have built them temples, and therein      
Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell      
In little houses lovable,      
Being happy (we remember how!)          25   
And peaceful even to death.…      
  O Thou,      
God of all long desirous roaming,      
Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,      
And crying after lost desire.          30   
Hearten us onward! as with fire      
Consuming dreams of other bliss.      
The best Thou givest, giving this      
Sufficient thing—to travel still      
Over the plain, beyond the hill,          35   
Unhesitating through the shade,      
Amid the silence unafraid,      
Till, at some sudden turn, one sees      
Against the black and muttering trees      
Thine altar, wonderfully white,          40   
Among the Forests of the Night.

I. 1905–1908   
11. The Song of the Beasts   
     
(Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)


COME away! Come away!      
Ye are sober and dull through the common day,      
But now it is night!      
It is shameful night, and God is asleep!      
(Have you not felt the quick fires that creep           5   
Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,      
And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).      
  The house is dumb;      
The night calls out to you.—Come, ah, come!      
Down the dim stairs, through the creaking door,          10   
Naked, crawling on hands and feet      
—It is meet! it is meet!      
Ye are men no longer, but less and more,      
Beast and God.… Down the lampless street,      
By little black ways, and secret places,          15   
In the darkness and mire,      
Faint laughter around, and evil faces      
By the star-glint seen—ah! follow with us!      
For the darkness whispers a blind desire,      
And the fingers of night are amorous.…          20   
Keep close as we speed,      
Though mad whispers woo you, and hot hands cling,      
And the touch and the smell of bare flesh sting,      
Soft flank by your flank, and side brushing side—      
To-night never heed!          25   
Unswerving and silent follow with me,      
Till the city ends sheer,      
And the crook’d lanes open wide,      
Out of the voices of night,      
Beyond lust and fear,          30   
To the level waters of moonlight,      
To the level waters, quiet and clear,      
To the black unresting plains of the calling sea.

I. 1905–1908   
12. Failure   
     
BECAUSE God put His adamantine fate      
  Between my sullen heart and its desire,      
I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,      
  Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.      
Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,           5   
  But Love was as a flame about my feet;      
  Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat      
Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry—      
     
All the great courts were quiet in the sun,      
  And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown          10   
Over the glassy pavement, and begun      
  To creep within the dusty council-halls.      
An idle wind blew round an empty throne      
  And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.

I. 1905–1908   
13. Ante Aram   
     
BEFORE thy shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper,      
  Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies,      
Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh.      
     
Ah, goddess, on thy throne of tears and faint low sighs,      
  Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err,           5   
And empty hearts grown tired of the world’s vanities.      
     
How fair this cool deep silence to a wanderer      
  Deaf with the roar of winds along the open skies!      
Sweet, after sting and bitter kiss of sea-water,      
     
The pale Lethean wine within thy chalices!          10   
  I come before thee, I, too tired wanderer,      
To heed the horror of the shrine, the distant cries,      
     
And evil whispers in the gloom, or the swift whirr      
Of terrible wings—I, least of all thy votaries,      
With a faint hope to see the scented darkness stir,          15   
     
And, parting, frame within its quiet mysteries      
  One face, with lips than autumn-lilies tenderer,      
And voice more sweet than the far plaint of viols is,      
     
Or the soft moan of any grey-eyed lute-player.

I. 1905–1908   
14. Dawn   
     
(From the train between Bologna and Milan, second class.)


OPPOSITE me two Germans snore and sweat.      
  Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar.      
We have been here for ever: even yet      
  A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more.      
The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet           5   
  With a night’s fœtor. There are two hours more;      
Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours yet.      
Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore.…      
     
One of them wakes, and spits, and sleeps again.      
  The darkness shivers. A wan light through the rain          10   
Strikes on our faces, drawn and white. Somewhere      
  A new day sprawls; and, inside, the foul air      
  Is chill, and damp, and fouler than before.…      
Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore.

I. 1905–1908   
15. The Call   
     
OUT of the nothingness of sleep,      
  The slow dreams of Eternity,      
There was a thunder on the deep:      
  I came, because you called to me.      
     
I broke the Night’s primeval bars,           5   
  I dared the old abysmal curse,      
And flashed through ranks of frightened stars      
  Suddenly on the universe!      
     
The eternal silences were broken;      
  Hell became Heaven as I passed.—          10   
What shall I give you as a token,      
  A sign that we have met, at last?      
     
I’ll break and forge the stars anew,      
  Shatter the heavens with a song;      
Immortal in my love for you,          15   
  Because I love you, very strong.      
     
Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,      
  Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,      
I’ll write upon the shrinking skies      
  The scarlet splendour of your name,          20   
Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder      
  Dies in her ultimate mad fire,      
And darkness falls, with scornful thunder,      
  On dreams of men and men’s desire.      
     
Then only in the empty spaces,          25   
  Death, walking very silently,      
Shall fear the glory of our faces      
  Through all the dark infinity.      
     
So, clothed about with perfect love,      
  The eternal end shall find us one,          30   
Alone above the Night, above      
  The dust of the dead gods, alone.

I. 1905–1908   
16. The Wayfarers   
     
IS it the hour? We leave this resting-place      
  Made fair by one another for a while.      
Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;      
  The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.      
Ah! the long road! and you so far away!           5   
Oh, I’ll remember! but … each crawling day      
Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile      
  Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.      
     
…Do you think there’s a far border town, somewhere,      
  The desert’s edge, last of the lands we know,          10   
  Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,      
  In which I’ll find you waiting; and we’ll go      
Together, hand in hand again, out there,      
  Into the waste we know not, into the night?

I. 1905–1908   
17. The Beginning   
     
SOME day I shall rise and leave my friends      
And seek you again through the world’s far ends,      
You whom I found so fair      
(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),      
My only god in the days that were.           5   
My eager feet shall find you again,      
Though the sullen years and the mark of pain      
Have changed you wholly; for I shall know      
(How could I forget having loved you so?),      
In the sad half-light of evening,          10   
The face that was all my sunrising.      
So then at the ends of the earth I’ll stand      
And hold you fiercely be either hand,      
And seeing your age and ashen hair      
I’ll curse the thing that once you were,          15   
Because it is changed and pale and old      
(Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!),      
And I loved you before you were old and wise,      
When the flame of youth was strong in your eyes,      
—And my heart is sick with memories.          20

II. 1908–1911   
1. Sonnet: Oh! Death Will Find Me, Long Before I Tire   
     
OH! Death will find me, long before I tire      
  Of watching you; and swing me suddenly      
Into the shade and loneliness and mire      
  Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,      
     
One day, I think, I’ll feel a cool wind blowing,           5   
  See a slow light across the Stygian tide,      
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,      
  And tremble. And Ishall know that you have died,      
     
And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,      
  Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,          10   
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam—      
  Most individual and bewildering ghost!—      
     
And turn, and toss your brown delightful head      
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

II. 1908–1911   
2. Sonnet: I Said I Splendidly Loved You; It’s Not True   
     
I SAID I splendidly loved you; it’s not true.      
  Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.      
On gods or fools the high risk falls—on you—      
  The clean clear bitter-sweet that’s not for me.      
Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.           5   
  Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.      
But—there are wanderers in the middle mist,      
  Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell      
Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom:      
  An old song’s lady, a fool in fancy dress,          10   
Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom;      
  For love of Love, or from heart’s loneliness.      
Pleasure’s not theirs, nor pain. They doubt, and sigh,      
  And do not love at all. Of these am I.