For him the secret alchemies are plain; He tells most surely how these things befall, In words grown intimate with roots and rain; And yet, he is so tender of it all, So wise and kind in ways of leaf and sod, Sometimes I think him very like to God.
Here where the snow comes whitely down, All worldiness is done; The saintly, silent little Town Is like a nun;
Most holy in her street and spire, Most perfectly at rest,-- Ah, God, who knows what hid desire Is in her breast,
Where peony or daffodil Or wayward rose begins, Burning her drifted bosom, still, Like secret sins.
Day fades with fading colours from the sky, And blue smoke blowing where the hills are gold, Is all a tale of loveliness gone by: Summer is ended, and the year is old, Beauty and bloom are wet leaves in the grass, And music is a lone wind on the hill, Crying that all things beautiful must pass, Crying that beauty is remembered still.
There will be wood-mist moving by the gate, There will be gathering to the fire by night, The greying ashes falling in the grate,-- And long remembering, in the failing light, Of ghosts returning for a wisp of fame, Cloudy and brief along the smoke and flame.
Men who have loved the ships they took to sea, Loved the tall masts, the prows that creamed with foam, Have learned, deep in their hearts, how it might be That there is yet a dearer thing than home. The decks they walk, the rigging in the stars, The clean boards counted in the watch they keep,-- These, and the sunlight on the slippery spars, Will haunt them ever, waking and asleep.
Ashore, these men are not as other men; They walk as strangers through the crowded street, Or, brooding by their fires, they hear again The drone astern, where gurgling waters meet, Or see again a wide and blue lagoon, And a lone ship that rides there with the moon.
Along this stillness steals their ghostly laughter: The oaths they swore, the clamant song and jest, Are haunting still each oaken beam and rafter, That looked on many a gay, forgotten guest. The clink of cups, the muffled clang of swords, These, and the flapping cards, will not be stilled, Though dust has spread the long-abandoned boards, And hides at last the crimson wine they spilled.