Twenty

Excerpt

CHRISTMAS, 1917

A key no thief can steal, no time can rust;

A faery door, adventurous and golden;

A palace, perfect to our eyes—Ah must

Our eyes be holden?

Has the past died before this present sin?

Has this most cruel age already stonèd

To martyrdom that magic Day, within

Those halls, enthronèd?

No. Through the dancing of the young spring rain,

Through the faint summer, and the autumn’s burning,

Our still immortal Day has heard again

Our steps returning.

THE SECRET DAY

My yesterday has gone, has gone and left me tired,

And now to-morrow comes and beats upon the door;

So I have built To-day, the day that I desired,

Lest joy come not again, lest peace return no more,

Lest comfort come no more.

So I have built To-day, a proud and perfect day,

And I have built the towers of cliffs upon the sands;

The foxgloves and the gorse I planted on my way;

The thyme, the velvet thyme, grew up beneath my hands,

Grew pink beneath my hands.

So I have built To-day, more precious than a dream;

And I have painted peace upon the sky above;

And I have made immense and misty seas, that seem

More kind to me than life, more fair to me than love—

More beautiful than love.

And I have built a house—a house upon the brink

Of high and twisted cliffs; the sea’s low singing fills it;

And there my Secret Friend abides, and there I think

I’ll hide my heart away before to-morrow kills it—

A cold to-morrow kills it.

Yes, I have built To-day, a wall against To-morrow,

So let To-morrow knock—I shall not be afraid,

For none shall give me death, and none shall give me sorrow,

And none shall spoil this darling day that I have made.

No storm shall stir my sea. No night but mine shall shade

This day that I have made.

SONG

There is the track my feet have worn

By which my fate may find me:

From that dim place where I was born

Those footprints run behind me.

Uncertain was the trail I left,

For—oh, the way was stormy;

But now this splendid sea has cleft

My journey from before me.

Three things the sea shall never end,

Three things shall mock its power:

My singing soul, my Secret Friend,

And this, my perfect hour.

And you shall seek me till you reach

The tangled tide advancing,

And you shall find upon the beach

The traces of my dancing,

And in the air the happy speech

Of Secret Friends romancing.

THE ORCHARD

I will repent me of my ways;

I will come here and bury

Five thousand odd superfluous days

Beneath a flow’ring cherry.

Between a pear and a cherry tree

My temple I will enter—

My place, where even I may be

The altar and the centre.

One altar to a thousand aisles,

A hundred thousand arches ...

The loud lamb-choir about me files,

The bleating bishop marches,

The congregation kneels and nods,

The bishop leads its praises,

So I’ll pray too, to their dim gods

Whose feet are decked with daisies:

Ah, let me not grow old. Ah, let

Me not grow old, and falter

In my delusion, or forget

My heart was once an altar.

Let me still think myself a star

With these my rays about me;

Pretend these green perspectives are

All purposeless without me....