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Many Voices

THE CHAMPION

Young and a conqueror, once on a day,
Wild white Winter rode out this way;
With his sword of ice and his banner of snow
Vanquished the Summer and laid her low.

Winter was young then, young and strong;
Now he is old, he has reigned too long.
He shall be routed, he shall be slain;
Summer shall come to her own again!

See the champion of Summer wake
Little armies in field and brake:
“Cruel and cold has King Winter been;
Fight for the Summer, fight for the Queen!”

First the aconite dots the mould
With little round cannon-balls of gold;
Then, to help in the winter’s rout,
Regiments of crocuses march out.

See the swords of the flag-leaves shine;
See the shield of the celandine,
And daffodil lances green and keen,
To fight for the Summer, fight for the Queen.

Silver triumphant the snowdrop swings
Banners that mock at defeated kings;
And wherever the green of the new grass peers,
See the array of victorious spears.

Daffodil trumpets soon shall sound
Over the garden’s battle-ground,
And lovely ladies crowd out to see
The long procession of victory.

Little daisies with snowy frills,
Courtly tulips and sweet jonquils,
Primrose and cowslip, friends well met
With white wood-sorrel and violet.

Hundreds of milkmaids by field and fold;
Thousands of buttercups licked with gold;
Budding hedges and woods and trees—
Spring brings freedom and life to these.

Then the triumphant Spring shall ride
Over the happy countryside;
Deep in the woods the birds shall sing:
“The King is dead—long live the King!”

But Spring is no king, but a faithful knight;
He will ride on through the meadows bright
Till at Summer’s feet he shall light him down
And lay at her feet the royal crown.

She will lean down where the roses twine
Between the may-trees’ silver shine,
And look in the eyes of the dying knight
Who led his army and won her fight.

She will stoop to his lips and say,
“Oh, live, O love! O my true love, stay!”
While he smiles and sighs her arms between
And dies for the Summer, dies for the Queen.

THE GARDEN REFUSED

There is a garden made for our delight,
   Where all the dreams we dare not dream come true.
      I know it, but I do not know the way.
We slip and tumble in the doubtful night,
   Where everything is difficult and new,
      And clouds our breath has made obscure the day.

The blank unhappy towns, where sick men strive,
   Still doing work that yet is never done;
      The hymns to Gold that drown their desperate voice;
The weeds that grow where once corn stood alive,
   The black injustice that puts out the sun:
      These are our portion, since they are our choice.

Yet there the garden blows with rose on rose,
   The sunny, shadow-dappled lawns are there;
      There the immortal lilies, heavenly sweet.
O roses, that for us shall not unclose!
   O lilies, that we shall not pluck or wear!
      O dewy lawns untrodden by our feet!

THESE LITTLE ONES

“What of the garden I gave?”
   God said to me;
“Hast thou been diligent to foster and save
   The life of flower and tree?
How have the roses thriven,
The lilies I have given,
The pretty scented miracles that Spring
And Summer come to bring?

“My garden is fair and dear,”
   I said to God;
“From thorns and nettles I have kept it clear.
   Green-trimmed its sod.
The rose is red and bright,
The lily a live delight;
I have not lost a flower of all the flowers
That blessed my hours.”

“What of the child I gave?”
   God said to me;
“The little, little one I died to save
   And gave in trust to thee?
How have the flowers grown
That in its soul were sown,
The lovely living miracles of youth
And hope and joy and truth?”

“The child’s face is all white,”
   I said to God;
“It cries for cold and hunger in the night:
   Its little feet have trod
The pavement muddy and cold.
It has no flowers to hold,
And in its soul the flowers you set are dead.”
“Thou fool!” God said.

THE DESPOT

The garden mould was damp and chill;
Winter had had his brutal will
Since over all the year’s content
His devastating legions went.

The Spring’s bright banners came: there woke
Millions of little growing folk
Who thrilled to know the winter done,
Gave thanks, and strove towards the sun.

Not so the elect; reserved, and slow
To trust a stranger-sun and grow,
They hesitated, cowered and hid,
Waiting to see what others did.

Yet even they, a little, grew,
Put out prim leaves to day and dew,
And lifted level formal heads
In their appointed garden beds.

The gardener came: he coldly loved
The flowers that lived as he approved,
That duly, decorously grew
As he, the despot, meant them to.

He saw the wildlings flower more brave
And bright than any cultured slave;
Yet, since he had not set them there,
He hated them for being fair.

So he uprooted, one by one,
The free things that had loved the sun,
The happy, eager, fruitful seeds
Who had not known that they were weeds.

THE MAGIC RING

Your touch on my hand is fire,
   Your lips on my lips are flowers.
My darling, my one desire,
   Dear crown of my days and hours.
Dear crown of each hour and day
   Since ever my life began.
Ah! leave me—ah! go away—
   We two are woman and man.

To lie in your arms and see
   The stars melt into the sun;
Till there is no you and me,
   Since you and I are one.
To loose my soul to your breath,
   To bare my heart to your life—
It is death, it is death, it is death!
   I am not your wife.

The hours will come and will go,
   But never again such an hour
When the tides immortal flow
   And life is a flood, a flower . . .
Wait for the ring; it is strong,
   It has a magic of might
To make all that was splendid and wrong
   Sordid and right.

PHILOSOPHY

The sulky sage scarce condescends to see
   This pretty world of sun and grass and leaves;
To him ’tis all illusion—only he
   Is real amid the visions he perceives.

No sage am I, and yet, by Love’s decree,
   To me the world’s a masque of shadows too,
And I a shadow also—since to me
   The only real thing in life is—you.

THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME

Before your feet,
My love, my sweet,
   Behold! your slave bows down;
And in his hands
From other lands
   Brings you another crown.

For in far climes,
In bygone times,
   Myself was royal too:
Oh, I have been
A king, my queen,
   Who am a slave for you!

MAGIC

What was the spell she wove for me?
   Life was a common useful thing,
      An eligible building site
To hold a house to shelter me.
   There were no woodlands whispering;
      No unimagined dreams at night
   About that house had folded wing,
Disordering my life for me.

I was so safe until she came
   With starry secrets in her eyes,
      And on her lips the word of power.
—Like to the moon of May she came,
   That makes men mad who were born wise—
      Within her hand the only flower
   Man ever plucked from Paradise;
So to my half-built house she came.

She turned my useful plot of land
   Into a garden wild and fair,
      Where stars in garlands hung like flowers:
A moonlit, lonely, lovely land.
   Dim groves and glimmering fountains there
      Embraced a secret bower of bowers,
   And in its rose-ringed heart we were
Alone in that enchanted land.

What was the spell I wove for her,
   Her mad dear magic to undo?
      The red rose dies, the white rose dies,
The garden spits me forth with her
   On the old suburban road I knew.
      My house is gone, and by my side
   A stranger stands with angry eyes
And lips that swear I ruined her.

WINDFLOWERS

When I was little and good
I walked in the dappled wood
Where light white windflowers grew,
And hyacinths heavy and blue.

The windflowers fluttered light,
Like butterflies white and bright;
The bluebells tremulous stood
Deep in the heart of the wood.

I gathered the white and the blue,
The wild wet woodland through,
With hands too silly and small
To clasp and carry them all.

Some dropped from my hands and died
By the home-road’s grassy side;
And those that my fond hands pressed
Died even before the rest.

AS IT IS

   If you and I
   Had wings to fly—
Great wings like seagulls’ wings—
   How would we soar
   Above the roar
Of loud unneeded things!

   We two would rise
   Through changing skies
To blue unclouded space,
   And undismayed
   And unafraid
Meet the sun face to face.

   But wings we know not;
   The feathers grow not
To carry us so high;
   And low in the gloom
   Of a little room
We weep and say good-bye.