I'll keep a little tavern There sound will sleep the traveller,
Below the high hill's crest, And dream his journey's end,
Wherein all grey-eyed people But I will rouse at midnight
May set them down and rest. The falling fire to tend.
There shall be plates a-plenty, Aye, 'tis a curious fancy—
And mugs to melt the chill But all the good I know
Of all the grey-eyed people Was taught me out of two grey eyes
Who happen up the hill. A long time ago.
I am not resigned to the shutting away of The answers quick and keen, the honest
loving hearts in the hard ground. look, the laughter, the love,—
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has They are gone. They are gone to feed
been, time out of mind: the roses. Elegant and curled
Into the darkness they go, the wise and Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom.
the lovely. Crowned I know. But I do not approve.
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I More precious was the light in your eyes
am not resigned. than all the roses in the world.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with Down, down, down into the darkness of
you. the grave
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender,
dust. the kind;
A fragment of what you felt, of what you Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty,
knew, the brave.
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the I know. But I do not approve. And I am
best is lost. not resigned.
Here life has death for neighbor, Pale, without name or number,
And far from eye or ear In fruitless fields of corn,
Wan waves and wet winds labour, They bow themselves and slumber
Weak ships and spirits steer; All night till light is born;
They drive adrift, and whither And like a soul belated,
They wot not who make thither; In hell and heaven unmated,
But no such winds blow hither, By cloud and mist abated
And no such things grow here. Comes out of darkness morn.
No growth of moor or coppice, Though one were strong as seven,
No heather-flower or vine, He too with death shall dwell,
But bloom-less buds of poppies, Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Green grapes of Proserpine, Nor weep for pains in hell;
Pale beds of blowing rushes Though one were fair as roses,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes His beauty clouds and closes;
Save this whereout she crushes And well though love reposes,
For dead men deadly wine. In the end it is not well.
The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;
and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion of what becomes
a star each night, and rises;
and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.
Strange violin, why do you follow me? Do in all great cities men exist
In how many foreign cities did you who tormented and in deep despair
speak of your lonely nights and those of would have sought the river but for you?
mine. And why does your playing always reach
me?
Are you being played by hundreds? Or Why is it that I am always neighbor
by one? to those lost ones who are forced to sing
and to say: Life is infinitely heavier
than the heaviness of all things.
There’s a mirror likeness between those two
shining, youthfully-fledged figures, though
one seems paler than the other and more austere,
I might even say more perfect, more distinguished,
than he, who would take me confidingly in his arms –
how soft then and loving his smile, how blessed his glance!
Then, it might well have been that his wreath
of white poppies gently touched my forehead, at times,
and drove the pain from my mind with its strange scent.
But that is transient. I can only, now, be well,
when the other one, so serious and pale,
the older brother, lowers his dark torch. –
Sleep is so good, Death is better, yet
surely never to have been born is best.
There’s a certain Slant of light, None may teach it – Any –
Winter Afternoons – ’Tis the seal Despair –
That oppresses, like the Heft An imperial affliction
Of Cathedral Tunes – Sent us of the Air –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – When it comes, the Landscape listens –
We can find no scar, Shadows – hold their breath –
But internal difference – When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
Where the Meanings, are – On the look of Death –
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
