By The Sea.
The heat is on the sea, and Noon
Has hushed the sounds upon the shore;
There is a silence evermore
That with the heart is so in tune
That ear and eye their senses steep
As if within a dreamy dew,
As charmed as when the bells of Sleep
To Night's church, Sweet, are calling you.
A sail far off hushed in the light
Comes into view and fades, as 'twere
Something that rose from slumber there:
E'en as a blind man musing might
Image a bird upon the wing,
The picture seems to us the same,
The whole bright noon around the thing,
As if it with the silence came.
And still we lie in the warm grass,
Our senses on the shining sea,
While thought like a sweet lethargy
Counts not the moments as they pass;
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poem by Robert Crawford
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Cleopatra.
The asp, her baby, on her breast,
She falls asleep,
Ever, like Antony, to rest
While Nile shall keep
Its course, and Egypt be a name
Whose utterance stirs
The shadow on the Roman's fame,
His love and hers.
Out of the mire and mirth of Time,
By thought removed,
The life that might have shone sublime,
Nor unbeloved —
A doting mallard when her sail
From Actium flew,
He knew her love was, passion-pale,
The sword that slew!
Ah! even though her love was lust,
The swarthy Queen,
When her babe gave the mortal thrust,
A woman's mien
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poem by Robert Crawford
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Isolation.
He came by unknown ways, and stood
At evening in the fading wood,
Which when the glowing hills were gone
Would as in a dream murmur on,
As he beside his camp-fire's glare
Sat as if in a vision there,
And felt the silence like a thing
In which his soul was functioning.
He was a poet maybe who
The world's impression dreamy drew
From his own heart in that strange air,
Like one who had been everywhere
And with the stars and fire-lit trees
Did blend a thousand memories,
Making that speck of light his home
Until the dewy dawn should come.
He well had seemed a phantom at
Some mystic work as lone he sat
Within his ring of charméd light,
Who might step out into the night,
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poem by Robert Crawford
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Ghosts.
They look in with dim eyes
And faces sweet and sad,
Upon the life that dies —
Shades who have had
Their part in all things here,
The mortal hope and fear,
Till, as now from the bier
But one remove,
They hark the still hours chime
Within the Tower of Time
As to the sad, sweet rhyme
Of life and love.
They see more than we know,
They hear more than we may,
Who ever come and go
Like stars on a cloudy way:
And they grow sad to ken
The mortal life of men,
In the vesper light again
As they look in
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poem by Robert Crawford
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Echo.
Here, Echo, was thy reign of old,
Among these hills, a mystic crowd
Whose thunder rolled
When they speak loud
Still shocks the sea: here thy hair grew
Long as a cloud whose shadow drew
Itself o'er chaos, ere Time rose
With life and death and all of those
Who live and die, whose weakest word
Thine ears have heard;
Still as thou sitt'st with sightless eyes
On a bright cloud in the lone vale,
Or leaning o'er a mountain rill
Dost hark the ebbing roar
Of a dead sea on some primeval shore,
Whose unrecorded memories
Are like the language of old gods who fell
From some starred pinnacle
In the lost years — as all things will
Too fall at last, and the great tale
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poem by Robert Crawford
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Natural Magic.
I have put by the schoolmen,
The seeming great and sage;
Nor will I taste the vintage
Brewed in the vats of Age;
But I will sip the dewdrops
On the lily's leaves unfurl'd,
And list the wild birds warble
The wisdom of the world.
But this shall be my learning:
Whate'er the pundit knows
Has the dust of doubt upon it
As to the grave it goes.
The truths that I would gather
Are different in kind,
Touched with a natural magic
No artifice can find.
Ere time, a weird, wild creature,
Had been ensnared and thrall'd
By any human meaning,
The gods in thunder call'd
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poem by Robert Crawford
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Love In Hades.
I saw Love pass with Charon down
The pale infernal tide,
To visit in the starless town
All who for him had died.
The gay God and the old Ghost came
Slow to that sleepy shore,
And a dead passion burned like flame
Before each true-love's door!
Into this place and that he stept:
The eyes still held their tears,
Though some had their strange sorrow kept
More than ten thousand years.
He saw the old and young who went
Devoid of life, yet who,
Though all their joys on earth were spent,
Were to their dream-loves true.
He saw all who had worshipped him
Before thought's light withdrew,
Until the ages seemed to swim
Round him there dying too!
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poem by Robert Crawford
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Spring.
'Let the light rain on her, the sweet Spring, till
She teems with greenery in the warm air,
Flower-hued, and vocal with the tender joy
Of bleating lambs and young birds on the wing.'
Thus on the cold hill doth the herdsman pray
Beneath his frozen star; the milkmaid, too,
As her raw hands take up the milking-pail,
And the wind freezes in the red dawn near: —
'Come, Spring, earth's sap, and mount in me until
I bloom, a rose of love: smile in mine eyes
Till my love from his wintry hill shall see
The star of youth, and leap into my arms!
O Spring, sweet Spring! but hear my prayer, and I
Shall build thee bowers of roses on the hill,
And all the summer there with bird and bee
Shall joy feast in the beauty of our love!'
Thus do they chant the wintry time away
In hill and vale, the two who look to when
The warmth of beauty takes life's wonder on,
And the rose of the flesh shall bloom for them.
poem by Robert Crawford
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The Bride.
Her bridal dawn! her heart was fed
Last night with eerie food,
As, one by one, her lovers dead
Came in the solitude,
And shared the last sad feast with her
In Beauty's grave, as if it were
To-morrow, white and cold,
The ghost of all that she had been
Would pass away for e'er, as e'en
Their dreams had died of old.
Each, with his sigil of despair,
Moved in the eerie room,
For all were cognisant (as e'er
All are beyond the tom
That one night more the virgin tie
Which had bound them would be put by,
As she felt passion's stir
Throb in her maidenhood, until
All that she was, for good and ill,
Became a dream to her.
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poem by Robert Crawford
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In Nineveh.
As he of Joppa sought to 'scape
The utterance of the given word,
And dared to get him from the Lord
In a ship down to Tarshish, — know
Thou canst not any burden throw
That was ordained for thee to bear
Though faith may make it light as air.
Though thou within the dust may rave,
Within the dust may rave and curse
Thy being and the universe,
He sends His lightnings still abroad,
Yet plants for thee the shadowy gourd,
And comes so near He leaves a trace
Of beauty on thy bitter face.
Thou canst not lose thyself: thou art
The given word; its utterance too
Is in all thou dost dream and do:
All men must hear it, hearing thee:
Thou canst not 'scape the prophecy
Of thy life here, howe'er thou rave
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poem by Robert Crawford
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