Incarnation
OUR little queen of dreams,
Our image of delight,
Which whitens east and gleams
And beckons from the height,
Takes on her human form—is here in mortal sight.
We two have loved her long,
Have known her eyes for years;
We worshipped her with song
The spirit only hears,
And now she comes to us new-washed with blood and tears.
Her radiant self she veils
With vesture meet for earth,
And, knowing all, inhales
The lethal air of birth,
And wakes to restless dreams of misery and mirth.
The fogs of learning rise
And hide the light above,
But in her steadfast eyes
Will shine the light of love,
Which many a gloomy dale may know the gladness of.
What gift is ours to give,
What truth is ours to teach
That she may learn to live
With joy within her reach?
We can but let her learn the sound of human speech.
By custom-fettered fools
Her freedom will be blamed,
Because by sleepy rules
Her soul shall be untamed,
And she will front the sun brown-skinned and unashamed.
Her kinship she will know
With beast and rock and tree,
Wherever she may go
The sky her home will be,
The winds will be her mates,
her crooning nurse the sea.
Death
He, born of my girlhood, is dead, while my life is yet young in my heart
Ere the breasts where his baby lips fed have forgotten their softness, we part.
We part. He was mine, he was here, though he travelled by land and by sea,
My son who could trample on fear, my babe who was moulded in me.
As I sat in the darkness, it seemed I could still feel his touch on my head;
He came in the night as I dreamed, and he knelt at the side of my bed;
He murmured the words I had taught when his lips were the lips of a child,
Ere the strength of his arm had been bought and the love that upheld him defiled;
Then my faltering spirit grew bold, and my heart had forgotten its drouth,
And I crooned little songs as of old, till I woke at his kiss on my mouth.
Now waking and sleeping are pain. Nevermore will he kiss, nevermore
Shall I hear his low whistle again at the gate, or his step on the floor,
For to-night he was here while I slept, and this is the end of it all.
Now that welter of darkness has swept us apart, can he come if I call?
Can he come, little chap with the eyes that brought light out of heaven to earth?
Can he come, though the soul of me cries for the joy that I bought by his birth?
I can see but the horror that bids the heart of the mother despair,
The vision that burns on my lids, the face that will always be there,
For he holds out his hands to me, red, and his eyes tell the truth as he stands.
He is dead. He is dead. He is dead. He is dead, with the blood on his hands.
Middle Harbour
Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,
Silent bracken about my knees.
Dusky scrub where the sunlight splashes,
Glimmer of waters barely seen
Here the hope that was dust and ashes
Leaps and flashes in flames of green.
Through the boughs that are still before me,
Misty blue of the harbour hills;
Mighty Spirit of Earth who bore me,
Here the peace of thy love distils.
Fools have harried me; hell has driven,
Bidding me toil for its fading shows:
Back I spring to your arms, forgiven,
Back to the truth that a dreamer knows.
Gold and glory and fleeting pleasure
Pass in dust or as melting cloud:
You can dower with eternal treasure
Heart uplifted and head unbowed.
Arms outstretched, and the hill-top hushes;
Long deep breath, and the whole scene fades;
Sweeping homeward, my soul outrushes,
My heart the heart of the world invades.
Fleshly trammels no longer bind me,
Joyous, forgetting that such things be;
Time and space have been left behind me,
Brother of stars, I am soaring, free.
Cramped no more, I exult, extended,
All I think of I hold within;
Secret surety of vision splendid
Makes me one with my lordly kin.
Out of the vast I return, and slowly
Into the prison of sense I glide,
Yet the splendour is gone not wholly,
Yet the love and the peace abide.
Soft wind rustles the leaves, and brightly
Wavers the light on the ferns and trees;
Water-ripples are laughing lightly,
Played upon by the sun and breeze.
There the robin, a friendly fellow,
Clings to a sapling stem and waits
Just where I noted his breast of yellow
Ere I ventured beyond the gates.
Only a moment, as clocks can reckon,
Dwells the soul at that height of heights;
Ah, but I know why the wood-gods beckon,
Why the stars are as beacon lights.
