Man and his Makers
1.
I am one of the wind's stories,
I am a fancy of the rain,-
A memory of the high noon's glories,
The hint the sunset had of pain.
2.
They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;
Hawthorn and I, I and the grass,
With sister shade and phantom brother
Across their slumber glide and pass.
3.
Twilight is in my blood, my being
Mingles with trees and ferns and stones;
Thunder and stars my lips are freeing,
And there is sea-rack in my bones.
4.
Those that have dreamed me shall out-wake me,
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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The Thief of Beauty
I
The mind is Beauty's thief, the poet takes
The golden spendthrift's trail among the blooms
Where she stands tossing silver in the lakes,
And twisting bright swift threads on airy looms.
Her ring the poppy snatches, and the rose
With laughter plunders all her gusty plumes.
The poet gleans and gathers as she goes
Heedless of summer's end certain and soon,
Of winter rattling at the door of June.
II
When Beauty lies hand-folded, pale and still,
Forsaken of her lovers and her lords,
And winter keeps cold watch upon the hill,
Then he lets fall his bale of coloured words.
At frosty midnight June shall rise in flame,
Move at his magic with her bells and birds,
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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A Song for Old Love
There shall be a song for both of us that day
Though fools say you have long outlived your songs,
And when, perhaps, because your hair is grey,
You go unsung, to whom all praise belongs,
And no men kiss your hands--your fragile hands
Folded like empty shells on sea-spurned sands.
And you that were dawn whereat men shouted once
Are sunset now, but with one worshipper,
Then to your twilight heart this song shall be
Sweeter than those that did your youth announce
For your brave beautiful spirit is lovelier
Than once your lovely body was to me.
Your folded hands and your shut eyelids stir
A passion that Time has crowned with sanctity.
Young fools shall wonder why, your youth being over,
You are so sung still, but your heart will know
That he who loved your soul was your true lover
And the last song alone was worthy you.
poem by Muriel Stuart
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The Tryst
I raised the veil, I loosed the bands,
I took the dead thing from its place.
Like a warm stream in frozen lands
My lips went wandering on her face,
My hands burnt in her hands.
She could not stay me, being dead;
Her body here was mine to hold.
What if her lips had lost their red?
To me they always tasted cold
With the cold words she said.
Did my breath run along her hair,
And free the pulse, and fire the brain,
My wild blood wake her wild blood there?
Here eyelids lifted wide again
In a blue, sudden stare.
Beneath my fierce, profane caress
The whole white length of body moved;
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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Annunciation
'The lord appeared in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed.'-EXODOUS iii.2.
When to your virgin heart, unstirred, ungiven,
Upon the quiet mountainside untrod,
The sudden naked fire came down from heaven,
Burning you with the very breath of God,
Was the sun lost? Were all the sweet stars dim
While God raised round your head those walls of light?
Were you locked dumbly, terribly with Him,
Within that burning temple day and night?
What was it to have God there like a bird-
God like a great, gold flower upon your breast-
While He spake things that only one man heard,
Face down before that glory manifest?
When that strange flame went up the mountain side,
Were your forsaken lips so burned with gold
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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A Chicot
IN days of ancient history
Who were you? Tell me if you know.
Between your kisses answer me
To-night, Chicot.
Were you a faun by Castaly
Tracking Urania or Clio?
Or a white boy in Arcady
Astray, Chicot?
Were you a satin-supple page
Swinging a curtain to and fro,
Chanting some impudent addage
Of love, Chicot?
Were you the subtlest cardinal
That ever blessing did bestow?
At Fontarabia did you fall,
Fighting, Chicot?
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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Forgotten Dead, I Salute You
Dawn has flashed up the startled skies,
Night has gone out beneath the hill
Many sweet times; before our eyes
Dawn makes and unmakes about us still
The magic that we call the rose.
The gentle history of the rain
Has been unfolded, traced and lost
By the sharp finger-tips of frost;
Birds in the hawthorn build again;
The hare makes soft her secret house;
The wind at tourney comes and goes,
Spurring the green, unharnessed boughs;
The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim:
He knew the beauty of all those
Last year, and who remembers him?
Love sometimes walks the waters still,
Laughter throws back her radiant head;
Utterly beauty is not gone,
And wonder is not wholly dead.
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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Ave et Vale
FAREWELL is said! Yea, but I cannot take
All that my Greeting gave.
In you hath Hope her doom and Joy her grave;
Still you go crowned with old imaginings,
Clad in the purple that young passion flings
About the sorriest god that Love can make.
Ah! would you might forget, and so pass by
Unwounded of my kiss,
Made free of Youth's unmemorable bliss!
Love's hand that speeds along his daisy chain
Forgets in swift delight to tell again
Old prayers upon a new-strung rosary.
For when I part from you I would not leave
One shadow that might be
A ghost to haunt you, what you had of me
I would fold by in Memory's lavender-
Something my breath may very gently stir
In the slow fading of a rainy eve.
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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Ave et Vale
FAREWELL is said! Yea, but I cannot take
All that my Greeting gave.
In you hath Hope her doom and Joy her grave;
Still you go crowned with old imaginings,
Clad in the purple that young passion flings
About the sorriest god that Love can make.
Ah! would you might forget, and so pass by
Unwounded of my kiss,
Made free of Youth's unmemorable bliss!
Love's hand that speeds along his daisy chain
Forgets in swift delight to tell again
Old prayers upon a new-strung rosary.
For when I part from you I would not leave
One shadow that might be
A ghost to haunt you, what you had of me
I would fold by in Memory's lavender--
Something my breath may very gently stir
In the slow fading of a rainy eve.
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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The Fools
BELOW, the street was hoarse with cries,
With groan of carts and scuffling feet,
With laughter worse than blasphemies,
Was choked with dust and blind with heat,
This room was still--too still for peace.
It heard the livid words we said
Of hate and passion, watched us where
I sat, as one beside the dead--
You lay with all your glorious hair
Flung on the crazy bed.
The moment's passion ended brought--
Ah, child, to you what did it bring?
What could it, but one hideous thought
To us so tired of everything,
And hating what we sought?
--So tired of all this grey room meant,
Of life together, shackled cold,
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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