Читать книгу Grass of Parnassus - Lang Andrew, May Kendall - Страница 5

      ‘Our Faith and Troth

   All time and space controules

Above the highest sphere we meet

Unseen, unknowne, and greet as Angels greet.’

Westward I watch the low green hills of Wales,

   The low sky silver grey,

The turbid Channel with the wandering sails

   Moans through the winter day.

There is no colour but one ashen light

   On tower and lonely tree,

The little church upon the windy height

   Is grey as sky or sea.

But there hath he that woke the sleepless Love

   Slept through these fifty years,

There is the grave that has been wept above

   With more than mortal tears.

And far below I hear the Channel sweep

   And all his waves complain,

As Hallam’s dirge through all the years must keep

   Its monotone of pain.

Grey sky, brown waters, as a bird that flies,

   My heart flits forth from these

Back to the winter rose of northern skies,

   Back to the northern seas.

And lo, the long waves of the ocean beat

   Below the minster grey,

Caverns and chapels worn of saintly feet,

   And knees of them that pray.

And I remember me how twain were one

   Beside that ocean dim,

I count the years passed over since the sun

   That lights me looked on him,

And dreaming of the voice that, save in sleep,

   Shall greet me not again,

Far, far below I hear the Channel sweep

   And all his waves complain.

Three crests against the saffron sky,

   Beyond the purple plain,

The kind remembered melody

   Of Tweed once more again.

Wan water from the border hills,

   Dear voice from the old years,

Thy distant music lulls and stills,

   And moves to quiet tears.

Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood

   Fleets through the dusky land;

Where Scott, come home to die, has stood,

   My feet returning stand.

A mist of memory broods and floats,

   The Border waters flow;

The air is full of ballad notes,

   Borne out of long ago.

Old songs that sung themselves to me,

   Sweet through a boy’s day dream,

While trout below the blossom’d tree

   Plashed in the golden steam.

Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill,

   Fair and too fair you be;

You tell me that the voice is still

   That should have welcomed me.

I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know

   Perchance, the grey eyes in another’s eyes,

Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow

   On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise

   Shall follow and track, and find thee in disguise

Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow,

When through the scent of heather, faint and low,

   The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.

From all sweet art, and out of all old rhyme,

   Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me;

The shadows of the beauty of all time,

   In song or story are but shapes of thee;

Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear,

   Shall life or death bring all thy being near?

I dreamed that somewhere in the shadowy place,

   Grief of farewell unspoken was forgot

   In welcome, and regret remembered not;

And hopeless prayer accomplished turned to praise

On lips that had been songless many days;

   Hope had no more to hope for, and desire

   And dread were overpast, in white attire

New born we walked among the new world’s ways.

Then from the press of shades a spirit threw

   Towards me such apples as these gardens bear;

And turning, I was ’ware of her, and knew

   And followed her fleet voice and flying hair, —

Followed, and found her not, and seeking you

   I found you never, dearest, anywhere.

The perfect piteous beauty of thy face

   Is like a star the dawning drives away;

   Mine eyes may never see in the bright day

Thy pallid halo, thy supernal grace;

But in the night from forth the silent place

   Thou comest, dim in dreams, as doth a stray

   Star of the starry flock that in the grey

Is seen, and lost, and seen a moment’s space.

And as the earth at night turns to a star,

   Loved long ago, and dearer than the sun,

So in the spiritual place afar,

   At night our souls are mingled and made one,

And wait till one night fall, and one dawn rise,

That brings no noon too splendid for your eyes.

The wind and the day had lived together,

   They died together, and far away

Spoke farewell in the sultry weather,

Out of the sunset, over the heather,

   The dying wind and the dying day.

Far in the south, the summer levin

   Flushed, a flame in the grey soft air:

We seemed to look on the hills of heaven;

You saw within, but to me ’twas given

   To see your face, as an angel’s, there.

Never again, ah surely never

   Shall we wait and watch, where of old we stood,

The low good-night of the hill and the river,

The faint light fade, and the wan stars quiver,

   Twain grown one in the solitude.

Come to me in my dreams, and then,

One saith, I shall be well again,

For then the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.

Nay, come not thou in dreams, my sweet,

With shadowy robes, and silent feet,

And with the voice, and with the eyes