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I COMPLACENCIES of the peignoir, and late | |
| Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, | |
| And the green freedom of a cockatoo | |
| Upon a rug, mingle to dissipate | |
| The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. | 5 |
| She dreams a little, and she feels the dark | |
| Encroachment of that old catastrophe, | |
| As a calm darkens among water-lights. | |
| The pungent oranges and bright, green wings | |
| Seem things in some procession of the dead, | 10 |
| Winding across wide water, without sound. | |
| The day is like wide water, without sound, | |
| Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet | |
| Over the seas, to silent Palestine, | |
| Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. | 15 |
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II She hears, upon that water without sound, | |
| A voice that cries: “The tomb in Palestine | |
| Is not the porch of spirits lingering; | |
| It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” | |
| We live in an old chaos of the sun, | 20 |
| Or old dependency of day and night, | |
| Or Island solitude, unsponsored, free, | |
| Of that wide water, inescapable. | |
| Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail | |
| Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; | 25 |
| Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; | |
| And, in the isolation of the sky, | |
| At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make | |
| Ambiguous undulations as they sink, | |
| Downward to darkness, on extended wings. | 30 |
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III She says: “I am content when wakened birds, | |
| Before they fly, test the reality | |
| Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; | |
| But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields | |
| Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” | 35 |
| There is not any haunt of prophecy, | |
| Nor any old chimera of the grave, | |
| Neither the golden underground, nor isle | |
| Melodious, where spirits gat them home, | |
| Nor visionary South, nor cloudy palm | 40 |
| Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured | |
| As April’s green endures; or will endure | |
| Like her remembrance of awakened birds, | |
| Or her desire for June and evening, tipped | |
| By the consummation of the swallow’s wings. | 45 |
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IV She says, “But in contentment I still feel | |
| The need of some imperishable bliss.” | |
| Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, | |
| Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams | |
| And our desires. Although she strews the leaves | 50 |
| Of sure obliteration on our paths— | |
| The path sick sorrow took, the many paths | |
| Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love | |
| Whispered a little out of tenderness— | |
| She makes the willow shiver in the sun | 55 |
| For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze | |
| Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. | |
| She causes boys to bring sweet-smelling pears | |
| And plums in ponderous piles. The maidens taste | |
| And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. | 60 |
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V Supple and turbulent, a ring of men | |
| Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn | |
| Their boisterous devotion to the sun— | |
| Not as a god, but as a god might be, | |
| Naked among them, like a savage source. | 65 |
| Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, | |
| Out of their blood, returning to the sky; | |
| And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, | |
| The windy lake wherein their lord delights, | |
| The trees, like seraphim, and echoing hills, | 70 |
| That choir among themselves long afterward. | |
| They shall know well the heavenly fellowship | |
| Of men that perish and of summer morn— | |
| And whence they came and whither they shall go, | |
| The dew upon their feet shall manifest. | 75 |
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