III. Experiments   
3. Desertion   
     
SO light we were, so right we were, so fair faith shone,      
And the way was laid so certainly, that, when I’d gone,      
What dumb thing looked up at you? Was it something heard,      
Or a sudden cry, that meekly and without a word      
You broke the faith, and strangely, weakly, slipped apart.           5   
You gave in—you, the proud of heart, unbowed of heart!      
Was this, friend, the end of all that we could do?      
And have you found the best for you, the rest for you?      
Did you learn so suddenly (and I not by!)      
Some whispered story, that stole the glory from the sky,          10   
And ended all the splendid dream, and made you go      
So dully from the fight we know, the light we know?      
     
O faithless! the faith remains, and I must pass      
Gay down the way, and on alone. Under the grass      
You wait; the breeze moves in the trees, and stirs, and calls,          15   
And covers you with white petals, with light petals.      
There it shall crumble, frail and fair, under the sun,      
O little heart, your brittle heart; till day be done,      
And the shadows gather, falling light, and, white with dew,      
Whisper, and weep; and creep to you. Good sleep to you!          20

IV. 1914   
1. I. Peace   
     
NOW, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,      
  And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,      
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,      
  To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,      
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,           5   
  Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,      
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,      
  And all the little emptiness of love!      
     
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,      
  Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,          10   
    Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;      
Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there      
  But only agony, and that has ending;      
    And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

IV. 1914   
2. II. Safety   
     
DEAR! of all happy in the hour, most blest      
  He who has found our hid security,      
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,      
  And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’      
We have found safety with all things undying,           5   
  The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,      
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,      
  And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.      
We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing.      
  We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.          10   
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,      
  Secretly armed against all death’s endeavour;      
Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall;      
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

IV. 1914   
3. III. The Dead   
     
BLOW out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!      
  There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,      
  But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.      
These laid the world away; poured out the red      
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be           5   
  Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,      
  That men call age; and those who would have been,      
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.      
     
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,      
  Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.          10   
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,      
  And paid his subjects with a royal wage;      
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;      
  And we have come into our heritage.

IV. 1914   
4. IV. The Dead   
     
THESE hearts were woven of human joys and cares,      
  Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.      
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,      
  And sunset, and the colours of the earth.      
These had seen movement, and heard music; known           5   
  Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;      
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;      
  Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.      
     
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter      
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,          10   
  Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance      
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white      
  Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,      
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

IV. 1914   
5. V. The Soldier   
     
IF I should die, think only this of me:      
  That there’s some corner of a foreign field      
That is for ever England. There shall be      
  In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;      
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,           5   
  Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,      
A body of England’s, breathing English air,      
  Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.      
     
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,      
  A pulse in the eternal mind, no less          10   
    Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;      
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;      
  And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,      
    In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

IV. 1914   
6. The Treasure   
     
WHEN colour goes home into the eyes,      
  And lights that shine are shut again      
With dancing girls and sweet birds’ cries      
  Behind the gateways of the brain;      
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close           5   
The rainbow and the rose:—      
     
Still may Time hold some golden space      
  Where I’ll unpack that scented store      
Of song and flower and sky and face,      
  And count, and touch, and turn them o’er,          10   
Musing upon them; as a mother, who      
Has watched her children all the rich day through      
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,      
When children sleep, ere night

V. The South Seas   
1. Tiare Tahiti   
     
MAMUA, when our laughter ends,      
And hearts and bodies, brown as white,      
Are dust about the doors of friends,      
Or scent ablowing down the night,      
Then, oh! then, the wise agree,           5   
Comes our immortality.      
Mamua, there waits a land      
Hard for us to understand.      
Out of time, beyond the sun,      
All are one in Paradise,          10   
You and Pupure are one,      
And Taü, and the ungainly wise.      
There the Eternals are, and there      
The Good, the Lovely, and the True,      
And Types, whose earthly copies were          15   
The foolish broken things we knew;      
There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;      
The real, the never-setting Star;      
And the Flower, of which we love      
Faint and fading shadows here;          20   
Never a tear, but only Grief;      
Dance, but not the limbs that move;      
Songs in Song shall disappear;      
Instead of lovers, Love shall be;      
For hearts, Immutability;          25   
And there, on the Ideal Reef,      
Thunders the Everlasting Sea!      
     
  And my laughter, and my pain,      
Shall home to the Eternal Brain.      
And all lovely things, they say,          30   
Meet in Loveliness again;      
Miri’s laugh, Teïpo’s feet,      
And the hands of Matua,      
Stars and sunlight there shall meet,      
Coral’s hues and rainbows there,          35   
And Teüra’s braided hair;      
And with the starred tiare’s white,      
And white birds in the dark ravine,      
And flamboyants ablaze at night,      
And jewels, and evening’s after-green,          40   
And dawns of pearl and gold and red,      
Mamua, your lovelier head!      
And there’ll no more be one who dreams      
Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff,      
Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems,          45   
All time-entangled human love.      
And you’ll no longer swing and sway      
Divinely down the scented shade,      
Where feet to Ambulation fade,      
And moons are lost in endless Day.          50   
How shall we wind these wreaths of ours,      
Where there are neither heads nor flowers?      
Oh, Heaven’s Heaven!—but we’ll be missing      
The palms, and sunlight, and the south;      
And there’s an end, I think, of kissing,          55   
When our mouths are one with Mouth.…      
     
  Taü here, Mamua,      
Crown the hair, and come away!      
Hear the calling of the moon,      
And the whispering scents that stray          60   
About the idle warm lagoon.      
Hasten, hand in human hand,      
Down the dark, the flowered way,      
Along the whiteness of the sand,      
And in the water’s soft caress,          65   
Wash the mind of foolishness,      
Mamua, until the day.      
Spend the glittering moonlight there      
Pursuing down the soundless deep      
Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,          70   
Or floating lazy, half-asleep.      
Dive and double and follow after,      
Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,      
With lips that fade, and human laughter      
And faces individual,          75   
Well this side of Paradise!…      
There’s little comfort in the wise.

PAPEETE, February 1914.

V. The South Seas   
2. Retrospect   
     
IN your arms was still delight,      
Quiet as a street at night;      
And thoughts of you, I do remember,      
Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,      
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.           5   
Love, in you, went passing by,      
Penetrative, remote, and rare,      
Like a bird in the wide air,      
And, as the bird, it left no trace      
In the heaven of your face.          10   
In your stupidity I found      
The sweet hush after a sweet sound.      
All about you was the light      
That dims the greying end of night;      
Desire was the unrisen sun,          15   
Joy the day not yet begun,      
With tree whispering to tree,      
Without wind, quietly.      
Wisdom slept within your hair,      
And Long-Suffering was there,          20   
And, in the flowing of your dress,      
Undiscerning Tenderness.      
And when you thought, it seemed to me,      
Infinitely, and like a sea,      
About the slight world you had known          25   
Your vast unconsciousness was thrown.…      
     
  O haven without wave or tide!      
Silence, in which all songs have died!      
Holy book, where hearts are still!      
And home at length under the hill!          30   
O mother quiet, breasts of peace,      
Where love itself would faint and cease!      
O infinite deep I never knew,      
I would come back, come back to you,      
Find you, as a pool unstirred,          35   
Kneel down by you, and never a word,      
Lay my head, and nothing said,      
In your hands, ungarlanded;      
And a long watch you would keep;      
And I should sleep, and I should sleep!

MATAIEA, January 1914.

V. The South Seas   
3. The Great Lover   
     
I HAVE been so great a lover: filled my days      
So proudly with the splendour of Love’s praise,      
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,      
Desire illimitable, and still content,      
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,           5   
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear      
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.      
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife      
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,      
My night shall be remembered for a star          10   
That outshone all the suns of all men’s days.      
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise      
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me      
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see      
The inenarrable godhead of delight?          15   
Love is a flame;—we have beaconed the world’s night.      
A city:—and we have built it, these and I.      
An emperor:—we have taught the world to die.      
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,      
And the high cause of Love’s magnificence,          20   
And to keep loyalties young, I’ll write those names      
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,      
And set them as a banner, that men may know,      
To dare the generations, burn, and blow      
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming.…          25   
These I have loved:      
    White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,      
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;      
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust      
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;          30   
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;      
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;      
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,      
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;      
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon          35   
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss      
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is      
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen      
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;      
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;          40   
The good smell of old clothes; and other such—      
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,      
Hair’s fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers      
About dead leaves and last year’s ferns.…      
    Dear names,          45   
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;      
Sweet water’s dimpling laugh from tap or spring;      
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;      
Voices in laughter, too; and body’s pain,      
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;          50   
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam      
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;      
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold      
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;      
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;          55   
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;      
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;—      
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,      
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,      
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power          60   
To hold them with me though the gate of Death.      
They’ll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,      
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love’s trust      
And sacramented covenant to the dust.      
—Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,          65   
And give what’s left of love again, and make      
New friends, now strangers.…      
    But the best I’ve known,      
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown      
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains          70   
Of living men, and dies.      
    Nothing remains.      
     
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again      
This one last gift I give: that after men      
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,          75   
Praise you, “All these were lovely”; say, “He loved.”

MATAIEA, 1914