Radclyffe Hall: Verses about Sleep

(Sidmouth)


Evening upon the calm sweet sea,
A little wind asleep,
Dim sails that drift as tranquilly
As dreams in slumber deep.
A seagull on the water's breast
Folds up his wings of white ;
As peaceful and as much at rest
As is my heart to-night.

Lime-trees meeting overhead,
Many lovers cold and dead.
Kissed and loved, and kissed again,
In the sunshine and the rain.
Underneath your scented green.

When we two, in Earth's kind breast,
Fall a-sleeping with the rest.
Then to us, who loved our fill,
Sweet to know you whisper still,
Happy leaves—of all that's been !

The sea was witness of the words you said :
She hushed her every tide that she might hear
Your whispered love, and while you bent so near
My bosom, laying down your weary head
To rest thereon—the corals in their bed
Stirred with emotion, shaken as with fear,
And foam grew paler, passionately drear
As some wan smile, upon a face that 's dead.

I took your hand in mine, your living hand !
And pressed it closer, closer in mine own.
A nameless terror shocked me while I scanned
Your ardent face ; there rose a stifled moan
To part my lips; I saw the future stand
Before me, and behold! I was alone.

Malvern


I rose, ere yet the eager light
Had wrested from the grasp of night
The trembling spirit of the world.
The dusk of dawn with wistful eyes
Stole timidly across the skies,
A little cloud its edges curled
By passing winds sped soft and bright
Towards some Eastern Paradise.

No bird was yet awake to sing,
And silence kissing everything
Compelled my doubting soul to rest.
While yet I slept a fall of snow
Had whitened all the hills, and lo!
Above the nearest summit's crest,
A pendent star, as though to bring
God's blessing to His Earth below,
Shone like a thought benign, and kind,
Within the vast Eternal Mind.

Where shall we make us a cosy home,
Up in a high pine tree?
Suppose the squirrel deserts his nest,
And we could only grow small and rest
Under the twigs, laid so daintily,
Up in the high pine tree !

Where shall we build us a lovely house,
Under the Ocean deep?
Suppose the fishes would swim away,
And leave a palace of coral gay,
With seaweed gardens where moonbeams sleep,
Under the Ocean deep !

Where shall we find an enchanted spot,
Up in the fields of sky?
Suppose the rainbow bends slowly down,
And we walk over to Cloudy Town,
Golden with beams from the morning's eye,
Up in the fields of sky !

How shall we live out our days, we two,
Safely where no harm parts?
Suppose we fetter our lives with love,
More fair than ocean, or skies above,
And learn to dwell in each other's hearts,
Safely where no harm parts.

To-day the still, deep mind of the Earth
Has steeped in longing her wistful eyes,
A sense of wonder and glad surprise
Thrills thro' her heart with a thought of birth.

The grave All-Mother looks up and smiles,
Her breath comes balmy from sunlit mouth,
Her bosom bare to the ardent south
Is fanned by perfume from fruitful miles.

All winter long has the dear Earth slept
In drifts of snow, 'neath the bane of frost,
Her children sought for the Mother lost,
Yet found her not, and in anguish wept.

All winter long have my senses cried
For warmth of sun, and the blue of sky,
The hard north answered to mock my sigh,
And all the glory of life denied.

The cold mists drifting on land and sea,
Like ghosts of passions burnt out and chill,
Smote heart and soul with the fear of ill,
That cast its awfulness over me.

The dank gray sails, and the dank gray shore,
They melted each in the other's face,
With clammy kiss, in a wan embrace
That left them colder than e'en before.

And thro' the boughs of the moss-grown trees
The sap flowed sluggish, or not at all,
While here and there would a dead leaf fall,
Like thought of harrowing memories.

Then from the heart of the Universe
There rose a wail of unending woe,
An anguished prayer from the deeps below:
' Oh ! Mother, lift from our souls the curse!'

'Oh! Mother, quicken thy sacred womb,
With fire that throbs in the veins of Spring,
Behold the numbness of everything,
And only thou can avert the doom.'

' Oh ! Mother, hear us !' But silent still
The Earth slept on, as it were in death.
Her ice-bound bosom stirred not with breath,
So fast she lay 'neath the winter's will.

I joined my prayer to the wind and trees,
I joined my cry to the striving soil,
I said, 'Oh ! Mother, our endless toil
Has made us sicken with miseries.

' Rise up ! and help us again to live,
Rise up ! uncover thy fruitful breast,
We faint in winter's unrestful rest,
We burn with longings to love and give.'

And as I spoke came a voice more strong
Than all creation's, o'er land and sea
It called our Mother to ecstasy,
And lo ! she stirred, who had slept so long.

She stirred, she opened her drowsy eyes,
And bending down from the dome above,
Beheld the form of embodied Love,
As Spring stepped Earthward from Paradise.