At summer noon he would not lie One with his cutter’s rise and dip, Free with the wind and sea and sky, And watch the dappled waves go by, The sea-gulls scream and slip; White sails, white birds, white clouds, white foam, White cliffs that curled the love of home Around him like a whip.... He would not see that summer noon Fade into dusk from light, While he on shifting waters bright Sailed idly on, beneath the moon Climbing the dome of night.
This was his dream of happy things That he had loved through many springs, And never more might know. But man must pass the shrouded gate Companioned by his secret fate, And he must lonely go, And none can help or understand, For other men may touch his hand, But none the soul below.
THEY roll, clan by clan, kin by kin, on wide orderly roads, Burghers and citizens all, in a stately procession, Driving before them the wealth of their worldly possession, Cattle, and horses, and pack-mules with sumptuous loads.
In velvet and fur and fat pearls,--rich lustre and sheen, Paunches and plenty, and fatuous voices contented Counting their gain, and their women all jewelled and scented Smiling false smiles with the little sharp word in between.
But those in the by-paths of vagrancy, star-gazers, they, Ragged and feckless and young, with no thought but their singing, Derisive of gain, and light as the bird in its winging, Stopping to kiss or to frolic, the simple and gay,
God’s fools,--the belovèd of God who made them and the wind, Gipsies and wastrels of life, the heedless of warning, Chasing the butterfly now on the breeze of the morning, Laugh at the passing procession that leaves them behind.
CLAMOUR has riven us, clamour and din. My hand reaches blindly out for your hand, but within My mind cannot reach to your mind, because of the clamour and din.
Clang as of brass, an uproar that will not cease. I would take from the strangest god or devil the gift of peace. If the strife that divides us were suddenly stilled and would cease
I could come to you, come under washed void skies, My thought in your thought embraced, my eyes and your eyes Levelly meeting without the quick faltering of disguise.
But all is a harshness and rack where in vain We strive through the grossness of flesh to discover our souls again, And the closer we clasp one another, the further apart remain.