Where the old plain men have rosy faces,

  And the young fair maidens

  Quiet eyes;

  Where essential silence cheers and blesses,

  And for ever in the hill-recesses

  Her more lovely music

  Broods and dies.

  O to mount again where erst I haunted;

  Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,

  And the low green meadows

  Bright with sward;

  And when even dies, the million-tinted,

  And the night has come, and planets glinted,

  Lo, the valley hollow

  Lamp-bestarred!

  O to dream, O to awake and wander

  There, and with delight to take and render,

  Through the trance of silence,

  Quiet breath;

  Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,

  Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;

  Only winds and rivers,

  Life and death.

  TO THE TUNE OF WANDERING WILLIE

  Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?

  Hunger my driver, I go where I must.

  Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;

  Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.

  Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.

  The true word of welcome was spoken in the door —

  Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,

  Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

  Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,

  Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.

  Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;

  Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.

  Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,

  Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.

  Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,

  The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

  Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl,

  Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers;

  Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,

  Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours;

  Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood —

  Fair shine the day on the house with open door;

  Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney —

  But I go for ever and come again no more.

  WINTER

  In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane

  The redbreast looks in vain

  For hips and haws,

  Lo, shining flowers upon my window-pane

  The silver pencil of the winter draws.

  When all the snowy hill

  And the bare woods are still;

  When snipes are silent in the frozen bogs,

  And all the garden garth is whelmed in mire,

  Lo, by the hearth, the laughter of the logs —

  More fair than roses, lo, the flowers of fire!

  Saranac Lake.

  THE STORMY EVENING CLOSES NOW IN VAIN

  The stormy evening closes now in vain,

  Loud wails the wind and beats the driving rain,

  While here in sheltered house

  With fire-ypainted walls,

  I hear the wind abroad,

  I hark the calling squalls —

  ‘Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘you burst your cheeks in vain!

  Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘my love is home again!’

  Yon ship you chase perchance but yesternight

  Bore still the precious freight of my delight,

  That here in sheltered house

  With fire-ypainted walls,

  Now hears the wind abroad,

  Now harks the calling squalls.

  ‘Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘in vain you rouse the sea,

  My rescued sailor shares the fire with me!’

  TO DR. HAKE. (On receiving a Copy of Verses)

  In the belovèd hour that ushers day,

  In the pure dew, under the breaking grey,

  One bird, ere yet the woodland quires awake,

  With brief réveillé summons all the brake:

  Chirp, chirp, it goes; nor waits an answer long;

  And that small signal fills the grove with song.

  Thus on my pipe I breathed a strain or two;

  It scarce was music, but ’twas all I knew.

  It was not music, for I lacked the art,

  Yet what but frozen music filled my heart?

  Chirp, chirp, I went, nor hoped a nobler strain;

  But Heaven decreed I should not pipe in vain,

  For, lo! not far from there, in secret dale,

  All silent, sat an ancient nightingale.

  My sparrow notes he heard; thereat awoke;

  And with a tide of song his silence broke.

  TO —

  I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills;

  I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure,

  In peace or war a Roman full equipt;

  And just I knew thee, like the fabled kings

  Who by the loud sea-shore gave judgment forth,

  From dawn to eve, bearded and few of words.

  What, what, was I to honour thee? A child;

  A youth in ardour but a child in strength,

  Who after virtue’s golden chariot-wheels

  Runs ever panting, nor attains the goal.

  So thought I, and was sorrowful at heart.

  Since then my steps have visited that flood

  Along whose shore the numerous footfalls cease,

  The voices and the tears of life expire.

  Thither the prints go down, the hero’s way

  Trod large upon the sand, the trembling maid’s:

  Nimrod that wound his trumpet in the wood,

  And the poor, dreaming child, hunter of flowers,

  That here his hunting closes with the great:

  So one and all go down, nor aught returns.

  For thee, for us, the sacred river waits,

  For me, the unworthy, thee, the perfect friend;

  There Blame desists, there his unfaltering dogs

  He from the chase recalls, and homeward rides;

  Yet Praise and Love pass over and go in.

  So when, beside that margin, I discard

  My more than mortal weakness, and with thee

  Through that still land unfearing I advance:

  If then at all we keep the touch of joy

  Thou shalt rejoice to find me altered — I,

  O Felix, to behold thee still unchanged.

  THE MORNING DRUM-CALL ON MY EAGER EAR

  The morning drum-call on my eager ear

  Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew

  Lies yet undried along my field of noon.

  But now I pause at whiles in what I do,

  And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear

  (My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon.

  I HAVE TROD THE UPWARD AND THE DOWNWARD SLOPE

  I have trod the upward and the downward slope;

  I have endured and done in days before;

  I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope;

  And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.

  HE HEARS WITH GLADDENED HEART THE THUNDER

  He hears with gladdened heart the thunder

  Peal, and loves the falling dew;

  He knows the earth above and under —

  Sits and is content to view.

  He sits beside the dying ember,

  God for hope and man for friend,

  Content to see, glad to remember,

  Expectant of the certain end.

  FAREWELL, FAIR DAY AND FADING LIGHT!

  Farewell, fair day and fading light!

  The clay-born here, with westward sight,

  Marks the huge sun now downward soar.

  Farewell. We twain shall meet no more.

  Farewell. I watch with bursting sigh

  My late contemned occasion die.

  I linger useless in my tent:

  Farewell, fair day, so foully spent!

  Farewell, fair day. If any God

  At all consider this poor clod,

  He who the fair occasion sent

  Prepared and placed the impediment.

  Let him diviner vengeance take —

  Give me to sleep, give me to wake

  Girded and shod, and bid me play

  The hero in the coming day!

  IF THIS WERE FAITH

  God, if this were enough,

  That I see things bare to the buff

  And up to the buttocks in mire;

  That I ask nor hope nor hire,

  Nut in the husk,

  Nor dawn beyond the dusk,

  Nor life beyond death:

  God, if this were faith?

  Having felt thy wind in my face

  Spit sorrow and disgrace,

  Having seen thine evil doom

  In Golgotha and Khartoum,

  And the brutes, the work of thine hands,

  Fill with injustice lands

  And stain with blood the sea:

  If still in my veins the glee

  Of the black night and the sun

  And the lost battle, run:

  If, an adept,

  The iniquitous lists I still accept

  With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood,

  And still to battle and perish for a dream of good:

  God, if that were enough?

  If to feel, in the ink of the slough,

  And the sink of the mire,

  Veins of glory and fire

  Run through and transpierce and transpire,

  And a secret purpose of glory in every part,

  And the answering glory of battle fill my heart;

  To thrill with the joy of girded men

  To go on for ever and fail and go on again,

  And be mauled to the earth and arise,

  And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not seen with the eyes:

  With the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night

  That somehow the right is the right

  And the smooth shall bloom from the rough:

  Lord, if that were enough?

  MY WIFE

  Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,

  With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,

  Steel-true and blade-straight,

  The great artificer

  Made my mate.

  Honour, anger, valour, fire;

  A love that life could never tire,

  Death quench or evil stir,

  The mighty master

  Gave to her.

  Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,

  A fellow-farer true through life,

  Heart-whole and soul-free

  The august father

  Gave to me.

  TO THE MUSE

  Resign the rhapsody, the dream,

  To men of larger reach;

  Be ours the quest of a plain theme,

  The piety of speech.

  As monkish scribes from morning break

  Toiled till the close of light,

  Nor thought a day too long to make

  One line or letter bright:

  We also with an ardent mind,

  Time, wealth, and fame forgot,

  Our glory in our patience find

  And skim, and skim the pot:

  Till last, when round the house we hear

  The evensong of birds,

  One corner of blue heaven appear

  In our clear well of words.

  Leave, leave it then, muse of my heart!

  Sans finish and sans frame,

  Leave unadorned by needless art

  The picture as it came.

  TO AN ISLAND PRINCESS

  Since long ago, a child at home,

  I read and longed to rise and roam,

  Where’er I went, whate’er I willed,

  One promised land my fancy filled.

  Hence the long roads my home I made;

  Tossed much in ships; have often laid

  Below the uncurtained sky my head,

  Rain-deluged and wind-buffeted:

  And many a thousand hills I crossed

  And corners turned — Love’s labour lost,

  Till, Lady, to your isle of sun

  I came, not hoping; and, like one

  Snatched out of blindness, rubbed my eyes,

  And hailed my promised land with cries.

  Yes, Lady, here I was at last;

  Here found I all I had forecast:

  The long roll of the sapphire sea

  That keeps the land’s virginity;

  The stalwart giants of the wood

  Laden with toys and flowers and food;

  The precious forest pouring out

  To compass the whole town about;

  The town itself with streets of lawn,

  Loved of the moon, blessed by the dawn,

  Where the brown children all the day

  Keep up a ceaseless noise of play,

  Play in the sun, play in the rain,

  Nor ever quarrel or complain; —

  And late at night, in the woods of fruit,

  Hark! do you hear the passing flute?

  I threw one look to either hand,

  And knew I was in Fairyland.

  And yet one point of being so

  I lacked. For, Lady (as you know),

  Whoever by his might of hand,

  Won entrance into Fairyland,

  Found always with admiring eyes

  A Fairy princess kind and wise.

  It was not long I waited; soon

  Upon my threshold, in broad noon,

  Gracious and helpful, wise and good,

  The Fairy Princess Moë stood.

  Tantira, Tahiti, Nov. 5, 1888.

  TO KALAKAUA. (With a present of a Pearl)

  The Silver Ship, my King — that was her name

  In the bright islands whence your fathers came —

  The Silver Ship, at rest from winds and tides,

  Below your palace in your harbour rides:

  And the seafarers, sitting safe on shore,

  Like eager merchants count their treasures o’er.

  One gift they find, one strange and lovely thing,

  Now doubly precious since it pleased a king.

  The right, my liege, is ancient as the lyre

  For bards to give to kings what kings admire.

  ’Tis mine to offer for Apollo’s sake;

  And since the gift is fitting, yours to take.

  To golden hands the golden pearl I bring:

  The ocean jewel to the island king.

  Honolulu, Feb. 3, 1889.

  TO PRINCESS KAIULANI

  [Written in April to Kaiulani in the April of her age; and at Waikiki, within easy walk of Kaiulani’s banyan! When she comes to my land and her father’s, and the rain beats upon the window (as I fear it will), let her look at this page; it will be like a weed gathered and pressed at home; and she will remember her own islands, and the shadow of the mighty tree; and she will hear the peacocks screaming in the dusk and the wind blowing in the palms; and she will think of her father sitting there alone. — R. L. S.]

  Forth from her land to mine she goes,

  The island maid, the island rose,

  Light of heart and bright of face:

  The daughter of a double race.

  Her islands here, in Southern sun,

  Shall mourn their Kaiulani gone,

  And I, in her dear banyan shade,

  Look vainly for my little maid.

  But our Scots islands far away

  Shall glitter with unwonted day,

  And cast for once their tempests by

  To smile in Kaiulani’s eye.

  Honolulu.

  TO MOTHER MARYANNE

  To see the infinite pity of this place,

  The mangled limb, the devastated face,

  The innocent sufferer smiling at the rod —

  A fool were tempted to deny his God.

  He sees, he shrinks. But if he gaze again,

  Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain!

  He marks the sisters on the mournful shores;

  And even a fool is silent and adores.

  Guest House, Kalawao, Molokai.

  IN MEMORIAM E. H.

  I knew a silver head was bright beyond compare,

  I knew a queen of toil with a crown of silver hair.

  Garland of valour and sorrow, of beauty and renown,

  Life, that honours the brave, crowned her himself with the crown.

  The beauties of youth are frail, but this was a jewel of age.

  Life, that delights in the brave, gave it himself for a gage.

  Fair was the crown to behold, and beauty its poorest part —

  At once the scar of the wound and the order pinned on the heart.

  The beauties of man are frail, and the silver lies in the dust,

  And the queen that we call to mind sleeps with the brave and the just;

  Sleeps with the weary at length; but, honoured and ever fair,

  Shines in the eye of the mind the crown of the silver hair.

  Honolulu.

  TO MY WIFE. (A Fragment)

  Long must elapse ere you behold again

  Green forest frame the entry of the lane —

  The wild lane with the bramble and the brier,

  The year-old cart-tracks perfect in the mire,

  The wayside smoke, perchance, the dwarfish huts,

  And ramblers’ donkey drinking from the ruts: —

  Long ere you trace how deviously it leads,

  Back from man’s chimneys and the bleating meads

  To the woodland shadow, to the sylvan hush,

  When but the brooklet chuckles in the brush —

  Back from the sun and bustle of the vale

  To where the great voice of the nightingale

  Fills all the forest like a single room,

  And all the banks smell of the golden broom;

  So wander on until the eve descends.

  And back returning to your firelit friends,

  You see the rosy sun, despoiled of light,

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913