Читать книгу Pan-Worship, and Other Poems - Eleanor Farjeon - Страница 4

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I

But yesterday the winds of March

Bent back the barren branches of the larch ...

But O! to-day

The bareness from the earth is swept away.

Deep through my swelling breast I hear

The wild call of the gipsy time o' year—

O, Vagrant Spring,

Brother o' mine, I'm for the gipsying!

The greening earth I stand upon

Tingles my feet: Brother, we must begone!

Younger and younger,

All my heart cries aloud with Wander-Hunger

II

Of troubles know I none,

Of pleasures know I many—

I rove beneath the sun

Without a single penny.

A king might envy long

The fare my board adorning—

Upon a throstle's song

I broke my fast this morning;

My lunch, a girl's quick smile,

As I'm a living sinner;

She walked with me a mile ...

I kissed her for my dinner.

Of troubles know I none,

Of pleasures know I many—

I fare beneath the sun

Without a single penny!

III

O, how she laughs with me,

Eats with me, quaffs with me,

Smiles to me, sighs to me,

Questions, replies to me,

Answers my every mood,

Finds good what I find good,

Earth, the green Mother!

Where shall man live and die

Having my treasury

Which never gold could buy—

Water and air and sky

And Earth's great sympathy—

Save he do live as I?

Join with me, Brother!

If you be sickening

Here's for your quickening!

Here at the heart of it

You shall be part of it,

And the good smell of rain

Shall make you whole again—

Join with me, Brother!

Here the life-sap runs green,

Here the life-ways are clean,

Here just one bird that sings

Re-starts your sluggish springs,

Here under moon and sun

You, I and She are one,

Earth, the green Mother!

IV

I lay me on the ground

Under the dark,

And Heaven's purple arc

Drew its deep curtains round

My weary head and shut away the sound.

The golden star-lights crept

Over the hill ...

I lay so very still

I heard them as they stepped ...

"Sleep!" breathed the Earth. Upon her breast I slept.

V

I'll stay one night beneath your roof,

And longer I will stay for no man,

And as for love, I'm loving-proof—

Turn by your eyes, White Woman.

The Wander-fever's in my blood,

I have no time for simple loving—

The hot Earth is in roving mood,

And I too must be roving.

If I should love you ... soon, ah, soon

I'd break your heart to go a-roaming,

And chasing shadows of the moon

Think never once of homing.

Why will you wring my breast with tears?

Tears will not quench the Wander-fever.

Why will you fill my soul with fears

When I will go for ever?

I whom the Earth's green passions move

Have put away all passions human ...

I will not love!... I dare not love ...

Turn by your eyes, White Woman.

VI

I went far and cold

Over upland wold

Where the story of spring's breathing

Scarcely yet was told.

Shifting monotone

Of the pale wind's moan

Through my hair at dusk went wreathing,

And I walked alone.

Far below and far

Where the homesteads are

One small ruddy candle twinkled,

Warmer than a star.

When the day was gone,

Softly one by one

Homing-lights the valley sprinkled ...

And I wandered on.