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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" lang="en-GB" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-GB">
<head>
<title>Poetry</title>
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" name="viewport"/>
<link rel="canonical" href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/c-s-lewis/poetry/text/single-page" />
<style><![CDATA[
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]]></style>
</head>
<body><main>
<section id="titlepage" epub:type="titlepage frontmatter">
<h1 epub:type="title">Poetry</h1>
<p>By <b epub:type="z3998:author z3998:personal-name"><abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">C. S.</abbr> Lewis</b>.</p>
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</section>
<nav id="toc" epub:type="toc">
<h2 epub:type="title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#titlepage">Titlepage</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#imprint">Imprint</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage">Spirits in Bondage</a>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-prologue">Prologue</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-part-1">Part <span epub:type="z3998:roman">I</span>: The Prison House</a>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-1"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">I</span>: Satan Speaks</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-2"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">II</span>: French Nocturne</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-3"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span>: The Satyr</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-4"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">IV</span>: Victory</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-5"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span>: Irish Nocturne</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-6"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">VI</span>: Spooks</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-7"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">VII</span>: Apology</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-8"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">VIII</span>: Ode for New Year’s Day</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-9"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">IX</span>: Night</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-10"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">X</span>: To Sleep</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-11"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XI</span>: In Prison</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-12"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XII</span>: De Profundis</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-13"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XIII</span>: Satan Speaks</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-14"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XIV</span>: The Witch</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-15"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XV</span>: Dungeon Grates</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-16"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XVI</span>: The Philosopher</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-17"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XVII</span>: The Ocean Strand</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-18"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XVIII</span>: Noon</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-19"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XIX</span>: Milton Read Again</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-20"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XX</span>: Sonnet</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-21"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXI</span>: The Autumn Morning</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-part-2">Part <span epub:type="z3998:roman">II</span>: Hesitation</a>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-22"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXII</span>: <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Apprenti Sorcier</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-23"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXIII</span>: Alexandrines</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-24"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXIV</span>: In Praise of Solid People</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-part-3">Part <span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span>: The Escape</a>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-25"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXV</span>: Song of the Pilgrims</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-26"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXVI</span>: Song</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-27"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXVII</span>: The Ass</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-28"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXVIII</span>: Ballade Mystique</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-29"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXIX</span>: Night</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-30"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXX</span>: Oxford</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-31"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXI</span>: Hymn (For Boy’s Voices)</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-32"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXII</span>: “Our Daily Bread”</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-33"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXIII</span>: How He Saw Angus the God</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-34"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXIV</span>: The Roads</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-35"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXV</span>: Hesperus</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-36"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXVI</span>: The Star Bath</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-37"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXVII</span>: <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Tu Ne Quæsieris</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-38"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXVIII</span>: Lullaby</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-39"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXXIX</span>: World’s Desire</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#spirits-in-bondage-chapter-40"><span epub:type="z3998:roman">XL</span>: Death in Battle</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer">Dymer</a>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-epigraph">Epigraph</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-halftitlepage">Dymer</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-1">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">I</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-2">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">II</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-3">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-4">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">IV</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-5">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-6">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">VI</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-7">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">VII</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-8">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">VIII</span></a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#dymer-chapter-9">Canto <span epub:type="z3998:roman">IX</span></a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#colophon">Colophon</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#uncopyright">Uncopyright</a>
</li>
</ol>
</nav>
<section id="imprint" epub:type="imprint frontmatter">
<header>
<h2 epub:type="title">Imprint</h2>
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epub:type="z3998:publisher-logo se:image.color-depth.black-on-transparent"/>
</header>
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</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage" epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
<hgroup>
<h2 epub:type="title">Spirits in Bondage</h2>
<p epub:type="subtitle">A Cycle of Lyrics</p>
</hgroup>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-prologue" epub:type="prologue z3998:poem">
<h3 epub:type="title">Prologue</h3>
<p>
<span>As of old Phoenician men, to the Tin Isles sailing</span>
<br/>
<span>Straight against the sunset and the edges of the earth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Chaunted loud above the storm and the strange sea’s wailing,</span>
<br/>
<span>Legends of their people and the land that gave them birth⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Sang aloud to Baal-Peor, sang unto the horned maiden,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sang how they should come again with the Brethon treasure laden,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sang of all the pride and glory of their hardy enterprise,</span>
<br/>
<span>How they found the outer islands, where the unknown stars arise;</span>
<br/>
<span>And the rowers down below, rowing hard as they could row,</span>
<br/>
<span>Toiling at the stroke and feather through the wet and wary weather,</span>
<br/>
<span>Even they forgot their burden in the measure of a song,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the merchants and the masters and the bondsmen all together,</span>
<br/>
<span>Dreaming of the wondrous islands, brought the gallant ship along;</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>So in mighty deeps alone on the chainless breezes blown</span>
<br/>
<span>In my oracle of verses I will sing of lands unknown,</span>
<br/>
<span>Flying from the scarlet city where a Lord that knows no pity,</span>
<br/>
<span>Mocks the broken people praying round his iron throne,</span>
<br/>
<span>—Sing about the Hidden Country fresh and full of quiet green.</span>
<br/>
<span>Sailing over seas uncharted to a port that none has seen.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-part-1" epub:type="division">
<hgroup>
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Part</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">I</span>
</h3>
<p epub:type="title">The Prison House</p>
</hgroup>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-1" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">I</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Satan Speaks</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I am Nature, the Mighty Mother,</span>
<br/>
<span>I am the law: ye have none other.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I am the flower and the dewdrop fresh,</span>
<br/>
<span>I am the lust in your itching flesh.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I am the battle’s filth and strain,</span>
<br/>
<span>I am the widow’s empty pain.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I am the sea to smother your breath,</span>
<br/>
<span>I am the bomb, the falling death.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I am the fact and the crushing reason</span>
<br/>
<span>To thwart your fantasy’s new-born treason.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I am the spider making her net,</span>
<br/>
<span>I am the beast with jaws blood-wet.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I am a wolf that follows the sun</span>
<br/>
<span>And I will catch him ere day be done.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-2" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">II</h4>
<p epub:type="title">French Nocturne</p>
<p lang="fr" epub:type="subtitle" xml:lang="fr">(Monchy-le-Preux)</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Long leagues on either hand the trenches spread</span>
<br/>
<span>And all is still; now even this gross line</span>
<br/>
<span>Drinks in the frosty silences divine</span>
<br/>
<span>The pale, green moon is riding overhead.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>The jaws of a sacked village, stark and grim;</span>
<br/>
<span>Out on the ridge have swallowed up the sun,</span>
<br/>
<span>And in one angry streak his blood has run</span>
<br/>
<span>To left and right along the horizon dim.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>There comes a buzzing plane: and now, it seems</span>
<br/>
<span>Flies straight into the moon. Lo! where he steers</span>
<br/>
<span>Across the pallid globe and surely nears</span>
<br/>
<span>In that white land some harbour of dear dreams!</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>False mocking fancy! Once I too could dream,</span>
<br/>
<span>Who now can only see with vulgar eye</span>
<br/>
<span>That he’s no nearer to the moon than I</span>
<br/>
<span>And she’s a stone that catches the sun’s beam.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>What call have I to dream of anything?</span>
<br/>
<span>I am a wolf. Back to the world again,</span>
<br/>
<span>And speech of fellow-brutes that once were men</span>
<br/>
<span>Our throats can bark for slaughter: cannot sing.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-3" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">III</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Satyr</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>When the flowery hands of spring</span>
<br/>
<span>Forth their woodland riches fling,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Through the meadows, through the valleys</span>
<br/>
<span>Goes the satyr carolling.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>From the mountain and the moor,</span>
<br/>
<span>Forest green and ocean shore</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">All the faerie kin he rallies</span>
<br/>
<span>Making music evermore.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>See! the shaggy pelt doth grow</span>
<br/>
<span>On his twisted shanks below,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">And his dreadful feet are cloven</span>
<br/>
<span>Though his brow be white as snow⁠—</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Though his brow be clear and white</span>
<br/>
<span>And beneath it fancies bright,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Wisdom and high thoughts are woven</span>
<br/>
<span>And the musics of delight,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Though his temples too be fair</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet two horns are growing there</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Bursting forth to part asunder</span>
<br/>
<span>All the riches of his hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Faerie maidens he may meet</span>
<br/>
<span>Fly the horns and cloven feet,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">But, his sad brown eyes with wonder</span>
<br/>
<span>Seeing⁠—stay from their retreat.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-4" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">IV</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Victory</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Roland is dead, Cuchulain’s crest is low,</span>
<br/>
<span>The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust,</span>
<br/>
<span>And Helen’s eyes and Iseult’s lips are dust</span>
<br/>
<span>And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>The faerie people from our woods are gone,</span>
<br/>
<span>No Dryads have I found in all our trees,</span>
<br/>
<span>No Triton blows his horn about our seas</span>
<br/>
<span>And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>The ancient songs they wither as the grass</span>
<br/>
<span>And waste as doth a garment waxen old,</span>
<br/>
<span>All poets have been fools who thought to mould</span>
<br/>
<span>A monument more durable than brass.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>For these decay: but not for that decays</span>
<br/>
<span>The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man</span>
<br/>
<span>That never rested yet since life began</span>
<br/>
<span>From striving with red Nature and her ways.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout</span>
<br/>
<span>Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft</span>
<br/>
<span>That they who watch the ages may not doubt.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed</span>
<br/>
<span>Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head</span>
<br/>
<span>And higher⁠—till the beast become a god.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-5" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">V</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Irish Nocturne</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Now the grey mist comes creeping up</span>
<br/>
<span>From the waste ocean’s weedy strand</span>
<br/>
<span>And fills the valley, as a cup</span>
<br/>
<span>Is filled of evil drink in a wizard’s hand;</span>
<br/>
<span>And the trees fade out of sight,</span>
<br/>
<span>Like dreary ghosts unhealthily</span>
<br/>
<span>Into the damp, pale night,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till you almost think that a clearer eye could see</span>
<br/>
<span>Some shape come up of a demon seeking apart</span>
<br/>
<span>His meat, as Grendel sought in Harte</span>
<br/>
<span>The thanes that at by the wintry log⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Grendel or the shadowy mass</span>
<br/>
<span>Of Balor, or the man with the face of clay,</span>
<br/>
<span>The grey, grey walker who used to pass</span>
<br/>
<span>Over the rock-arch nightly to his prey.</span>
<br/>
<span>But here at the dumb, slow stream where the willows hang,</span>
<br/>
<span>With never a wind to blow the mists apart,</span>
<br/>
<span>Bitter and bitter it is for thee, O my heart,</span>
<br/>
<span>Looking upon this land, where poets sang,</span>
<br/>
<span>Thus with the dreary shroud</span>
<br/>
<span>Unwholesome, over it spread,</span>
<br/>
<span>And knowing the fog and the cloud</span>
<br/>
<span>In her people’s heart and head</span>
<br/>
<span>Even as it lies for ever upon her coasts</span>
<br/>
<span>Making them dim and dreamy lest her sons should ever arise</span>
<br/>
<span>And remember all their boasts;</span>
<br/>
<span>For I know that the colourless skies</span>
<br/>
<span>And the blurred horizons breed</span>
<br/>
<span>Lonely desire and many words and brooding and never a deed.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-6" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VI</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Spooks</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Last night I dreamed that I was come again</span>
<br/>
<span>Unto the house where my belovèd dwells</span>
<br/>
<span>After long years of wandering and pain.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And I stood out beneath the drenching rain</span>
<br/>
<span>And all the street was bare, and black with night,</span>
<br/>
<span>But in my true love’s house was warmth and light.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Yet I could not draw near nor enter in,</span>
<br/>
<span>And long I wondered if some secret sin</span>
<br/>
<span>Or old, unhappy anger held me fast;</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Till suddenly it came into my head</span>
<br/>
<span>That I was killed long since and lying dead⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Only a homeless wraith that way had passed.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>So thus I found my true love’s house again</span>
<br/>
<span>And stood unseen amid the winter night</span>
<br/>
<span>And the lamp burned within, a rosy light,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the wet street was shining in the rain.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-7" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Apology</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>If men should ask, Despoina, why I tell</span>
<br/>
<span>Of nothing glad nor noble in my verse</span>
<br/>
<span>To lighten hearts beneath this present curse</span>
<br/>
<span>And build a heaven of dreams in real hell,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Go you to them and speak among them thus:</span>
<br/>
<span>“There were no greater grief than to recall,</span>
<br/>
<span>Down in the rotting grave where the lithe worms crawl,</span>
<br/>
<span>Green fields above that smiled so sweet to us.”</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Is it good to tell old tales of Troynovant</span>
<br/>
<span>Or praises of dead heroes, tried and sage,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or sing the queens of unforgotten age,</span>
<br/>
<span>Brynhild and Maeve and virgin Bradamant?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>How should I sing of them? Can it be good</span>
<br/>
<span>To think of glory now, when all is done,</span>
<br/>
<span>And all our labour underneath the sun</span>
<br/>
<span>Has brought us this⁠—and not the thing we would?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>All these were rosy visions of the night,</span>
<br/>
<span>The loveliness and wisdom feigned of old.</span>
<br/>
<span>But now we wake. The East is pale and cold,</span>
<br/>
<span>No hope is in the dawn, and no delight.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-8" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VIII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Ode for New Year’s Day</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Woe unto you, ye sons of pain that are this day in earth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Now cry for all your torment: now curse your hour of birth</span>
<br/>
<span>And the fathers who begat your to a portion nothing worth.</span>
<br/>
<span>And Thou, my own belovèd, for as brave as ere thou art,</span>
<br/>
<span>Bow down thine head, Despoina, clasp thy pale arms over it,</span>
<br/>
<span>Lie low with fast-closed eyelids, clenched teeth, enduring heart,</span>
<br/>
<span>For sorrow on sorrow is coming wherein all flesh has part.</span>
<br/>
<span>The sky above is sickening, the clouds of God’s hate cover it,</span>
<br/>
<span>Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought</span>
<br/>
<span>Seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm</span>
<br/>
<span>That fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught</span>
<br/>
<span>Shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Thrice happy, O Despoina, were the men who were alive</span>
<br/>
<span>In the great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran</span>
<br/>
<span>On upward curve and easily, for then both maid and man</span>
<br/>
<span>And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive.</span>
<br/>
<span>But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars</span>
<br/>
<span>And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back</span>
<br/>
<span>Amid the death of nations, and points a downward track,</span>
<br/>
<span>And madness is come over us and great and little wars.</span>
<br/>
<span>He has not left one valley, one isle of fresh and green</span>
<br/>
<span>Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck.</span>
<br/>
<span>It’s vainly we are praying. We cannot, cannot check</span>
<br/>
<span>The Power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>It’s truth they tell, Despoina, none hears the eart’s complaining</span>
<br/>
<span>For Nature will not pity, nor the red God lend an ear.</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter paining</span>
<br/>
<span>And lifted up my voice to God, thinking that he could hear</span>
<br/>
<span>The curse wherewith I cursed Him because the Good was dead.</span>
<br/>
<span>But lo! I am grown wiser, knowing that our own hearts</span>
<br/>
<span>Have made a phantom called the Good, while a few years have sped</span>
<br/>
<span>Over a little planet. And what should the great Lord know of it</span>
<br/>
<span>Who tosses the dust of chaos and gives the suns their parts?</span>
<br/>
<span>Hither and thither he moves them; for an hour we see the show of it:</span>
<br/>
<span>Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done.</span>
<br/>
<span>And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun</span>
<br/>
<span>And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill,</span>
<br/>
<span>And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears</span>
<br/>
<span>The wail of hearts he has broken, the sounds of human ill?</span>
<br/>
<span>He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears,</span>
<br/>
<span>And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Ah, sweet, if a man could cheat him! If you could flee away</span>
<br/>
<span>Into some other country beyond the rosy West,</span>
<br/>
<span>To hide in the deep forests and be for ever at rest</span>
<br/>
<span>From the rankling hate of God and the outworn world’s decay!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-9" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">IX</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Night</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>After the fret and failure of this day,</span>
<br/>
<span>And weariness of thought, O Mother Night,</span>
<br/>
<span>Come with soft kiss to soothe our care away</span>
<br/>
<span>And all our little tumults set to right;</span>
<br/>
<span>Most pitiful of all death’s kindred fair,</span>
<br/>
<span>Riding above us through the curtained air</span>
<br/>
<span>On thy dusk car, thou scatterest to the earth</span>
<br/>
<span>Sweet dreams and drowsy charms of tender might</span>
<br/>
<span>And lovers’ dear delight before to-morrow’s birth.</span>
<br/>
<span>Thus art thou wont thy quiet lands to leave</span>
<br/>
<span>And pillared courts beyond the Milky Way</span>
<br/>
<span>Wherein thou tarriest all our solar day</span>
<br/>
<span>While unsubstantial dreams before thee weave</span>
<br/>
<span>A foamy dance, and fluttering fancies play</span>
<br/>
<span>About thy palace in the silver ray</span>
<br/>
<span>Of some far, moony globe. But when the hour,</span>
<br/>
<span>The long-expected comes, the ivory gates</span>
<br/>
<span>Open on noiseless hinge before thy bower</span>
<br/>
<span>Unbidden, and the jewelled chariot waits</span>
<br/>
<span>With magic steeds. Thou from the fronting rim</span>
<br/>
<span>Bending to urge them, whilst thy sea-dark hair</span>
<br/>
<span>Falls in ambrosial ripples o’er each limb,</span>
<br/>
<span>With beautiful pale arms, untrammelled, bare</span>
<br/>
<span>For horsemanship to those twin chargers fleet</span>
<br/>
<span>Dost give full reign across the fires that flow</span>
<br/>
<span>In the wide floor of heaven, from off their feet</span>
<br/>
<span>Scattering the powdery star-dust as they go.</span>
<br/>
<span>Come swiftly down the sky, O Lady Night,</span>
<br/>
<span>Fall through the shadow-country, O most kind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Shake out thy strands of gentle dreams and light</span>
<br/>
<span>For chains, wherewith thou still art used to bind</span>
<br/>
<span>With tenderest love of careful leeches’ art</span>
<br/>
<span>The bruised and weary heart</span>
<br/>
<span>In slumber blind.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-10" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">X</h4>
<p epub:type="title">To Sleep</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I will find out a place for thee, O Sleep⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>A hidden wood among the hill-tops green,</span>
<br/>
<span>Full of soft streams and little winds that creep</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">The murmuring boughs between.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>A hollow cup above the ocean placed</span>
<br/>
<span>Where nothing rough, nor loud, nor harsh shall be,</span>
<br/>
<span>But woodland light and shadow interlaced</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">And summer sky and sea.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>There in the fragrant twilight I will raise</span>
<br/>
<span>A secret altar of the rich sea sod,</span>
<br/>
<span>Whereat to offer sacrifice and praise</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Unto my lonely god:</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Due sacrifice of his own drowsy flowers,</span>
<br/>
<span>The deadening poppies in an ocean shell</span>
<br/>
<span>Round which through all forgotten days and hours</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">The great seas wove their spell.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>So may he send me dreams of dear delight</span>
<br/>
<span>And draughts of cool oblivion, quenching pain,</span>
<br/>
<span>And sweet, half-wakeful moments in the night</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">To hear the falling rain.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And when he meets me at the dusk of day</span>
<br/>
<span>To call me home for ever, this I ask⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>That he may lead me friendly on that way</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">And wear no frightful mask.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-11" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XI</h4>
<p epub:type="title">In Prison</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I cried out for the pain of man,</span>
<br/>
<span>I cried out for my bitter wrath</span>
<br/>
<span>Against the hopeless life that ran</span>
<br/>
<span>For ever in a circling path</span>
<br/>
<span>From death to death since all began;</span>
<br/>
<span>Till on a summer night</span>
<br/>
<span>I lost my way in the pale starlight</span>
<br/>
<span>And saw our planet, far and small,</span>
<br/>
<span>Through endless depths of nothing fall</span>
<br/>
<span>A lonely pin-prick spark of light,</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon the wide, enfolding night,</span>
<br/>
<span>With leagues on leagues of stars above it,</span>
<br/>
<span>And powdered dust of stars below⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Dead things that neither hate nor love it</span>
<br/>
<span>Not even their own loveliness can know,</span>
<br/>
<span>Being but cosmic dust and dead.</span>
<br/>
<span>And if some tears be shed,</span>
<br/>
<span>Some evil God have power,</span>
<br/>
<span>Some crown of sorrow sit</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon a little world for a little hour⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Who shall remember? Who shall care for it?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-12" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">De Profundis</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Come let us curse our Master ere we die,</span>
<br/>
<span>For all our hopes in endless ruin lie.</span>
<br/>
<span>The good is dead. Let us curse God most High.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought</span>
<br/>
<span>Wherein man laboured upward and still wrought</span>
<br/>
<span>New worlds and better, Thou hast made as naught.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>We built us joyful cities, strong and fair,</span>
<br/>
<span>Knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare.</span>
<br/>
<span>And all this time you laughed upon our care,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong,</span>
<br/>
<span>Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song,</span>
<br/>
<span>The heaven grew loud with weeping. Thou art strong.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Come then and curse the Lord. Over the earth</span>
<br/>
<span>Gross darkness falls, and evil was our birth</span>
<br/>
<span>And our few happy days of little worth.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Even if it be not all a dream in vain</span>
<br/>
<span>—The ancient hope that still will rise again⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Of a just God that cares for earthly pain,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Yet far away beyond our labouring night,</span>
<br/>
<span>He wanders in the depths of endless light,</span>
<br/>
<span>Singing alone his musics of delight;</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Only the far, spent echo of his song</span>
<br/>
<span>Our dungeons and deep cells can smite along,</span>
<br/>
<span>And Thou art nearer. Thou art very strong.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>O universal strength, I know it well,</span>
<br/>
<span>It is but froth of folly to rebel,</span>
<br/>
<span>For thou art Lord and hast the keys of Hell.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Yet I will not bow down to thee nor love thee,</span>
<br/>
<span>For looking in my own heart I can prove thee,</span>
<br/>
<span>And know this frail, bruised being is above thee.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,</span>
<br/>
<span>Our mercy and long seeking of the light,</span>
<br/>
<span>Shall we change these for thy relentless might?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Heap torment still on torment for thy mirth⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-13" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XIII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Satan Speaks</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I am the Lord your God: even he that made</span>
<br/>
<span>Material things, and all these signs arrayed</span>
<br/>
<span>Above you and have set beneath the race</span>
<br/>
<span>Of mankind, who forget their Father’s face</span>
<br/>
<span>And even while they drink my light of day</span>
<br/>
<span>Dream of some other gods and disobey</span>
<br/>
<span>My warnings, and despise my holy laws,</span>
<br/>
<span>Even tho’ their sin shall slay them. For which cause,</span>
<br/>
<span>Dreams dreamed in vain, a never-filled desire</span>
<br/>
<span>And in close flesh a spiritual fire,</span>
<br/>
<span>A thirst for good their kind shall not attain,</span>
<br/>
<span>A backward cleaving to the beast again.</span>
<br/>
<span>A loathing for the life that I have given,</span>
<br/>
<span>A haunted, twisted soul for ever riven</span>
<br/>
<span>Between their will and mine⁠—such lot I give</span>
<br/>
<span>While still in my despite the vermin live.</span>
<br/>
<span>They hate my world! Then let that other God</span>
<br/>
<span>Come from the outer spaces glory-shod,</span>
<br/>
<span>And from this castle I have built on Night</span>
<br/>
<span>Steal forth my own thought’s children into light,</span>
<br/>
<span>If such an one there be. But far away</span>
<br/>
<span>He walks the airy fields of endless day,</span>
<br/>
<span>And my rebellious sons have called Him long</span>
<br/>
<span>And vainly called. My order still is strong</span>
<br/>
<span>And like to me nor second none I know.</span>
<br/>
<span>Wither the mammoth went this creature too shall go.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-14" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XIV</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Witch</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Trapped amid the woods with guile</span>
<br/>
<span>They’ve led her hound in fetters vile</span>
<br/>
<span>To death, a deadlier sorceress</span>
<br/>
<span>Than any born for earth’s distress</span>
<br/>
<span>Since first the winner of the fleece</span>
<br/>
<span>Bore home the Colchian witch to Greece⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Seven months with snare and gin</span>
<br/>
<span>They’ve sought the maid o’erwise within</span>
<br/>
<span>The forest’s labyrinthine shade.</span>
<br/>
<span>The lonely woodman half afraid</span>
<br/>
<span>Far off her ragged form has seen</span>
<br/>
<span>Sauntering down the alleys green,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or crouched in godless prayer alone</span>
<br/>
<span>At eve before a Druid stone</span>
<br/>
<span>But now the bitter chase is won,</span>
<br/>
<span>The quarry’s caught, her magic’s done,</span>
<br/>
<span>The bishop’s brought her strongest spell</span>
<br/>
<span>To naught with candle, book, and bell;</span>
<br/>
<span>With holy water splashed upon her,</span>
<br/>
<span>She goes to burning and dishonour</span>
<br/>
<span>Too deeply damned to feel her shame,</span>
<br/>
<span>For, though beneath her hair of flame</span>
<br/>
<span>Her thoughtful head be lowly bowed</span>
<br/>
<span>It droops for meditation proud</span>
<br/>
<span>Impenitent, and pondering yet</span>
<br/>
<span>Things no memory can forget,</span>
<br/>
<span>Starry wonders she has seen</span>
<br/>
<span>Brooding in the wildwood green</span>
<br/>
<span>With holiness. For who can say</span>
<br/>
<span>In what strange crew she loved to play,</span>
<br/>
<span>What demons or what gods of old</span>
<br/>
<span>Deep mysteries unto her have told</span>
<br/>
<span>At dead of night in worship bent</span>
<br/>
<span>At ruined shrines magnificent,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or how the quivering will she sent</span>
<br/>
<span>Alone into the great alone</span>
<br/>
<span>Where all is loved and all is known,</span>
<br/>
<span>Who now lifts up her maiden eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>And looks around with soft surprise</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon the noisy, crowded square,</span>
<br/>
<span>The city oafs that nod and stare,</span>
<br/>
<span>The bishop’s court that gathers there,</span>
<br/>
<span>The faggots and the blackened stake</span>
<br/>
<span>Where sinners die for justice’ sake?</span>
<br/>
<span>Now she is set upon the pile,</span>
<br/>
<span>The mob grows still a little while,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till lo! before the eager folk</span>
<br/>
<span>Up curls a thin, blue line of smoke.</span>
<br/>
<span>“Alas!” the full-fed burghers cry,</span>
<br/>
<span>“That evil loveliness must die!”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-15" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XV</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Dungeon Grates</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>So piteously the lonely soul of man</span>
<br/>
<span>Shudders before this universal plan,</span>
<br/>
<span>So grievous is the burden and the pain</span>
<br/>
<span>So heavy weighs the long, material chain</span>
<br/>
<span>From cause to cause, too merciless for hate,</span>
<br/>
<span>The nightmare march of unrelenting fate,</span>
<br/>
<span>I think that he must die thereof unless</span>
<br/>
<span>Ever and again across the dreariness</span>
<br/>
<span>There came a sudden glimpse of spirit faces,</span>
<br/>
<span>A fragrant breath to tell of flowery places</span>
<br/>
<span>And wider oceans, breaking on the shore</span>
<br/>
<span>From which the hearts of men are always sore.</span>
<br/>
<span>It lies beyond endeavour; neither prayer</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor fasting, nor much wisdom winneth there,</span>
<br/>
<span>Seeing how many prophets and wise men</span>
<br/>
<span>Have sought for it and still returned again</span>
<br/>
<span>With hope undone. But only the strange power</span>
<br/>
<span>Of unsought Beauty in some casual hour</span>
<br/>
<span>Can build a bridge of light or sound or form</span>
<br/>
<span>To lead you out of all this strife and storm;</span>
<br/>
<span>When of some beauty we are grown a part</span>
<br/>
<span>Till from its very glory’s midmost heart</span>
<br/>
<span>Out leaps a sudden beam of larger light</span>
<br/>
<span>Into our souls. All things are seen aright</span>
<br/>
<span>Amid the blinding pillar of its gold,</span>
<br/>
<span>Seven times more true than what for truth we hold</span>
<br/>
<span>In vulgar hours. The miracle is done</span>
<br/>
<span>And for one little moment we are one</span>
<br/>
<span>With the eternal stream of loveliness</span>
<br/>
<span>That flows so calm, aloft from all distress</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet leaps and lives around us as a fire</span>
<br/>
<span>Making us faint with overstrong desire</span>
<br/>
<span>To sport and swim for ever in its deep⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Only a moment.</span>
<br/>
<span class="i8">O! but we shall keep</span>
<br/>
<span>Our vision still. One moment was enough,</span>
<br/>
<span>We know we are not made of mortal stuff.</span>
<br/>
<span>And we can bear all trials that come after,</span>
<br/>
<span>The hate of men and the fool’s loud bestial laughter</span>
<br/>
<span>And Nature’s rule and cruelties unclean,</span>
<br/>
<span>For we have seen the Glory⁠—we have seen.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-16" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XVI</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Philosopher</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Who shall be our prophet then,</span>
<br/>
<span>Chosen from all the sons of men</span>
<br/>
<span>To lead his fellows on the way</span>
<br/>
<span>Of hidden knowledge, delving deep</span>
<br/>
<span>To nameless mysteries that keep</span>
<br/>
<span>Their secret form the solar day!</span>
<br/>
<span>Or who shall pierce with surer eye!</span>
<br/>
<span>This shifting veil of bittersweet</span>
<br/>
<span>And find the real things that lie</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond this turmoil, which we greet</span>
<br/>
<span>With such a wasted wealth of tears?</span>
<br/>
<span>Who shall cross over for us the bridge of fears</span>
<br/>
<span>And pass in to the country where the ancient Mothers dwell?</span>
<br/>
<span>Is it an elder, bent and hoar</span>
<br/>
<span>Who, where the waste Atlantic swell</span>
<br/>
<span>Oh lonely beaches makes its roar,</span>
<br/>
<span>In his solitary tower</span>
<br/>
<span>Through the long night hour by hour</span>
<br/>
<span>Pores on old books with watery eye</span>
<br/>
<span>When all his youth has passed him by,</span>
<br/>
<span>And folly is schooled and love is dead</span>
<br/>
<span>And frozen fancy laid abed,</span>
<br/>
<span>While in his veins the gradual blood</span>
<br/>
<span>Slackens to a marish flood?</span>
<br/>
<span>For he rejoiceth not in the ocean’s might,</span>
<br/>
<span>Neither the sun giveth delight,</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor the moon by night</span>
<br/>
<span>Shall call his feet to wander in the haunted forest lawn.</span>
<br/>
<span>He shall no more rise suddenly in the dawn</span>
<br/>
<span>When mists are white and the dew lies pearly</span>
<br/>
<span>Cold and cold on every meadow,</span>
<br/>
<span>To take his joy of the season early,</span>
<br/>
<span>The opening flower and the westward shadow,</span>
<br/>
<span>And scarcely can he dream of laughter and love,</span>
<br/>
<span>They lie so many leaden years behind.</span>
<br/>
<span>Such eyes are dim and blind,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the sad, aching head that nods above</span>
<br/>
<span>His monstrous books can never know</span>
<br/>
<span>The secret we would find.</span>
<br/>
<span>But let our seer be young and kind</span>
<br/>
<span>And fresh and beautiful of show,</span>
<br/>
<span>And taken ere the lustyhead</span>
<br/>
<span>And rapture of his youth be dead;</span>
<br/>
<span>Ere the gnawing, peasant reason</span>
<br/>
<span>School him over-deep in treason</span>
<br/>
<span>To the ancient high estate</span>
<br/>
<span>Of his fancy’s principate,</span>
<br/>
<span>That he may live a perfect whole,</span>
<br/>
<span>A mask of the eternal soul,</span>
<br/>
<span>And cross at last the shadowy bar</span>
<br/>
<span>To where the ever-living are.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-17" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XVII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Ocean Strand</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>O leave the labouring roadways of the town,</span>
<br/>
<span>The shifting faces and the changeful hue</span>
<br/>
<span>Of markets, and broad echoing streets that drown</span>
<br/>
<span>The heart’s own silent music. Though they too</span>
<br/>
<span>Sing in their proper rhythm, and still delight</span>
<br/>
<span>The friendly ear that loves warm human kind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet it is good to leave them all behind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Now when from lily dawn to purple night</span>
<br/>
<span>Summer is queen,</span>
<br/>
<span>Summer is queen in all the happy land.</span>
<br/>
<span>Far, far away among the valleys green</span>
<br/>
<span>Let us go forth and wander hand in hand</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond those solemn hills that we have seen</span>
<br/>
<span>So often welcome home the falling sun</span>
<br/>
<span>Into their cloudy peaks when day was done⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond them till we find the ocean strand</span>
<br/>
<span>And hear the great waves run,</span>
<br/>
<span>With the waste song whose melodies I’d follow</span>
<br/>
<span>And weary not for many a summer day,</span>
<br/>
<span>Born of the vaulted breakers arching hollow</span>
<br/>
<span>Before they flash and scatter into spray.</span>
<br/>
<span>On, if we should be weary of their play</span>
<br/>
<span>Then I would lead you further into land</span>
<br/>
<span>Where, with their ragged walls, the stately rocks</span>
<br/>
<span>Shut in smooth courts and paved with quiet sand</span>
<br/>
<span>To silence dedicate. The sea-god’s flocks</span>
<br/>
<span>Have rested here, and mortal eyes have seen</span>
<br/>
<span>By great adventure at the dead of noon</span>
<br/>
<span>A lonely nereid drowsing half a-swoon</span>
<br/>
<span>Buried beneath her dark and dripping locks.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-18" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XVIII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Noon</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Noon! and in the garden bower</span>
<br/>
<span>The hot air quivers o’er the grass</span>
<br/>
<span>The little lake is smooth as glass</span>
<br/>
<span>And still so heavily the hour</span>
<br/>
<span>Drags, that scarce the proudest flower</span>
<br/>
<span>Pressed upon its burning bed</span>
<br/>
<span>Has strength to lift a languid head:</span>
<br/>
<span>—Rose and fainting violet</span>
<br/>
<span>By the water’s margin set</span>
<br/>
<span>Swoon and sink as they were dead</span>
<br/>
<span>Though their weary leaves be fed</span>
<br/>
<span>With the foam-drops of the pool</span>
<br/>
<span>Where it trembles dark and cool</span>
<br/>
<span>Wrinkled by the fountain spraying</span>
<br/>
<span>O’er it. And the honey-bee</span>
<br/>
<span>Hums his drowsy melody</span>
<br/>
<span>And wanders in his course a-straying</span>
<br/>
<span>Through the sweet and tangled glade</span>
<br/>
<span>With his golden mead o’erladen</span>
<br/>
<span>Where beneath the pleasant shade</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the darkling boughs a maiden</span>
<br/>
<span>—Milky limb and fiery tress,</span>
<br/>
<span>All at sweetest random laid⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Slumbers, drunken with the excess</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the noontide’s loveliness.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-19" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XIX</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Milton Read Again</p>
<p epub:type="subtitle">(In Surrey)</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Three golden months while summer on us stole</span>
<br/>
<span>I have read your joyful tale another time,</span>
<br/>
<span>Breathing more freely in that larger clime</span>
<br/>
<span>And learning wiselier to deserve the whole.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Your Spirit, Master, has been close at hand</span>
<br/>
<span>And guided me, still pointing treasures rare,</span>
<br/>
<span>Thick-sown where I before saw nothing fair</span>
<br/>
<span>And finding waters in the barren land.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Barren once thought because my eyes were dim.</span>
<br/>
<span>Like one I am grown to whom the common field</span>
<br/>
<span>And often-wandered copse one morning yield</span>
<br/>
<span>New pleasures suddenly; for over him</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Falls the weird spirit of unexplained delight,</span>
<br/>
<span>New mystery in every shady place,</span>
<br/>
<span>In every whispering tree a nameless grace,</span>
<br/>
<span>New rapture on the windy seaward height.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>So may she come to me, teaching me well</span>
<br/>
<span>To savour all these sweets that lie to hand</span>
<br/>
<span>In wood and lane about this pleasant land</span>
<br/>
<span>Though it be not the land where I would dwell.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-20" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XX</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Sonnet</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>The stars come out; the fragrant shadows fall</span>
<br/>
<span>About a dreaming garden still and sweet,</span>
<br/>
<span>I hear the unseen bats above me bleat</span>
<br/>
<span>Among the ghostly moths their hunting call,</span>
<br/>
<span>And twinkling glow-worms all about me crawl.</span>
<br/>
<span>Now for a chamber dim, a pillow meet</span>
<br/>
<span>For slumbers deep as death, a faultless sheet,</span>
<br/>
<span>Cool, white and smooth. So may I reach the hall</span>
<br/>
<span>With poppies strewn where sleep that is so dear</span>
<br/>
<span>With magic sponge can wipe away an hour</span>
<br/>
<span>Or twelve and make them naught. Why not a year,</span>
<br/>
<span>Why could a man not loiter in that bower</span>
<br/>
<span>Until a thousand painless cycles wore,</span>
<br/>
<span>And then⁠—what if it held him evermore?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-21" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXI</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Autumn Morning</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>See! the pale autumn dawn</span>
<br/>
<span>Is faint, upon the lawn</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">That lies in powdered white</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">Of hour-frost dight</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And now from tree to tree</span>
<br/>
<span>The ghostly mist we see</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Hung like a silver pall</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">To hallow all.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>It wreathes the burdened air</span>
<br/>
<span>So strangely everywhere</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">That I could almost fear</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">This silence drear</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Where no one song-bird sings</span>
<br/>
<span>And dream that wizard things</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Mighty for hate or love</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">Were close above.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>White as the fog and fair</span>
<br/>
<span>Drifting through middle air</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">In magic dances dread</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">Over my head.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Yet these should know me too</span>
<br/>
<span>Lover and bondman true,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">One that has honoured well</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">The mystic spell</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Of earth’s most solemn hours</span>
<br/>
<span>Wherein the ancient powers</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Of dryad, elf, or faun</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">Or leprechaun</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Oft have their faces shown</span>
<br/>
<span>To me that walked alone</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Seashore or haunted fen</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">Or mountain glen.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Wherefore I will not fear</span>
<br/>
<span>To walk the woodlands sere</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Into this autumn day</span>
<br/>
<span class="i2">Far, far away.</span>
</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-part-2" epub:type="division">
<hgroup>
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Part</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">II</span>
</h3>
<p epub:type="title">Hesitation</p>
</hgroup>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-22" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXII</h4>
<p lang="fr" epub:type="title" xml:lang="fr">L’Apprenti Sorcier</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Suddenly there came to me</span>
<br/>
<span>The music of a mighty sea</span>
<br/>
<span>That on a bare and iron shore</span>
<br/>
<span>Thundered with a deeper roar</span>
<br/>
<span>Than all the tides that leap and run</span>
<br/>
<span>With us below the real sun:</span>
<br/>
<span>Because the place was far away,</span>
<br/>
<span>Above, beyond our homely day,</span>
<br/>
<span>Neighbouring close the frozen clime</span>
<br/>
<span>Where out of all the woods of time,</span>
<br/>
<span>Amid the frightful seraphim</span>
<br/>
<span>The fierce, cold eyes of Godhead gleam,</span>
<br/>
<span>Revolving hate and misery</span>
<br/>
<span>And wars and famines yet to be.</span>
<br/>
<span>And in my dreams I stood alone</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon a shelf of weedy stone,</span>
<br/>
<span>And saw before my shrinking eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>The dark, enormous breakers rise,</span>
<br/>
<span>And hover and fall with deafening thunder</span>
<br/>
<span>Of thwarted foam that echoed under</span>
<br/>
<span>The ledge, through many a cavern drear,</span>
<br/>
<span>With hollow sounds of wintry fear.</span>
<br/>
<span>And through the waters waste and grey,</span>
<br/>
<span>Thick-strown for many a league away,</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of the toiling sea arose</span>
<br/>
<span>Many a face and form of those</span>
<br/>
<span>Thin, elemental people dear</span>
<br/>
<span>Who live beyond our heavy sphere.</span>
<br/>
<span>And all at once from far and near,</span>
<br/>
<span>They all held out their arms to me,</span>
<br/>
<span>Crying in their melody,</span>
<br/>
<span>“Leap in! Leap in, and take thy fill</span>
<br/>
<span>Of all the cosmic good and ill,</span>
<br/>
<span>Be as the Living ones that know</span>
<br/>
<span>Enormous joy, enormous woe,</span>
<br/>
<span>Pain beyond thought and fiery bliss:</span>
<br/>
<span>For all thy study hunted this,</span>
<br/>
<span>On wings of magic to arise,</span>
<br/>
<span>And wash from off thy filmed eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>The cloud of cold mortality,</span>
<br/>
<span>To find the real life and be</span>
<br/>
<span>As are the children of the deep!</span>
<br/>
<span>Be bold and dare the glorious leap,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or to thy shame, go, slink again</span>
<br/>
<span>Back to the narrow ways of men.”</span>
<br/>
<span>So all these mocked me as I stood</span>
<br/>
<span>Striving to wake because I feared the flood.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-23" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXIII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Alexandrines</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>There is a house that most of all on earth I hate.</span>
<br/>
<span>Though I have passed through many sorrows and have been</span>
<br/>
<span>In bloody fields, sad seas, and countries desolate,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet most I fear that empty house where the grasses green</span>
<br/>
<span>Grow in the silent court the gaping flags between,</span>
<br/>
<span>And down the moss-grown paths and terrace no man treads</span>
<br/>
<span>Where the old, old weeds rise deep on the waste garden beds.</span>
<br/>
<span>Like eyes of one long dead the empty windows stare</span>
<br/>
<span>And I fear to cross the garden, I fear to linger there,</span>
<br/>
<span>For in that house I know a little, silent room</span>
<br/>
<span>Where Someone’s always waiting, waiting in the gloom</span>
<br/>
<span>To draw me with an evil eye, and hold me fast⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet thither doom will drive me and He will win at last.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-24" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXIV</h4>
<p epub:type="title">In Praise of Solid People</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Thank God that there are solid folk</span>
<br/>
<span>Who water flowers and roll the lawn,</span>
<br/>
<span>And sit and sew and talk and smoke,</span>
<br/>
<span>And snore all through the summer dawn.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Who pass untroubled nights and days</span>
<br/>
<span>Full-fed and sleepily content,</span>
<br/>
<span>Rejoicing and each other’s praise,</span>
<br/>
<span>Respectable and innocent.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Who feel the things that all men feel,</span>
<br/>
<span>And think in well-worn grooves of thought,</span>
<br/>
<span>Whose honest spirits never reel</span>
<br/>
<span>Before man’s mystery, overwrought.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Yet not unfaithful nor unkind,</span>
<br/>
<span>With work-day virtues surely staid,</span>
<br/>
<span>Theirs is the sane and humble mind,</span>
<br/>
<span>And dull affections undismayed.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>O happy people! I have seen</span>
<br/>
<span>No verse yet written in your praise,</span>
<br/>
<span>And, truth to tell, the time has been</span>
<br/>
<span>I would have scorned your easy ways.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But now thro’ weariness and strife</span>
<br/>
<span>I learn your worthiness indeed,</span>
<br/>
<span>The world is better for such life</span>
<br/>
<span>As stout suburban people lead.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Too often have I sat alone</span>
<br/>
<span>When the wet night falls heavily,</span>
<br/>
<span>And fretting winds around me moan,</span>
<br/>
<span>And homeless longing vexes me</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>For lore that I shall never know,</span>
<br/>
<span>And visions none can hope to see,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till brooding works upon me so</span>
<br/>
<span>A childish fear steals over me.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I look around the empty room,</span>
<br/>
<span>The clock still ticking in its place,</span>
<br/>
<span>And all else silent as the tomb,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till suddenly, I think, a face</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Grows from the darkness just beside.</span>
<br/>
<span>I turn, and lo! it fades away,</span>
<br/>
<span>And soon another phantom tide</span>
<br/>
<span>Of shifting dreams begins to play,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And dusky galleys past me sail,</span>
<br/>
<span>Full freighted on a faerie sea;</span>
<br/>
<span>I hear the silken merchants hail</span>
<br/>
<span>Across the ringing waves to me</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>—Then suddenly, again, the room,</span>
<br/>
<span>Familiar books about me piled,</span>
<br/>
<span>And I alone amid the gloom,</span>
<br/>
<span>By one more mocking dream beguiled.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And still no nearer to the Light,</span>
<br/>
<span>And still no further from myself,</span>
<br/>
<span>Alone and lost in clinging night</span>
<br/>
<span>—(The clock’s still ticking on the shelf).</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Then do I envy solid folk</span>
<br/>
<span>Who sit of evenings by the fire</span>
<br/>
<span>After their work and doze and smoke,</span>
<br/>
<span>And are not fretted by desire.</span>
</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-part-3" epub:type="division">
<hgroup>
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Part</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">III</span>
</h3>
<p epub:type="title">The Escape</p>
</hgroup>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-25" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXV</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Song of the Pilgrims</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>O Dwellers at the back of the North Wind,</span>
<br/>
<span>What have we done to you? How have we sinned</span>
<br/>
<span>Wandering the Earth from Orkney unto Ind?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>With many deaths our fellowship is thinned,</span>
<br/>
<span>Our flesh is withered in the parching wind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Wandering the earth from Orkney unto Ind.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>We have no rest. We cannot turn again</span>
<br/>
<span>Back to the world and all her fruitless pain,</span>
<br/>
<span>Having once sought the land where ye remain.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Some say ye are not. But, ah God! we know</span>
<br/>
<span>That somewhere, somewhere past the Northern snow</span>
<br/>
<span>Waiting for us the red-rose gardens blow:</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>—The red-rose and the white-rose gardens blow</span>
<br/>
<span>In the green Northern land to which we go,</span>
<br/>
<span>Surely the ways are long and the years are slow.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>We have forsaken all things sweet and fair,</span>
<br/>
<span>We have found nothing worth a moment’s care</span>
<br/>
<span>Because the real flowers are blowing there.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Land of the Lotus fallen from the sun,</span>
<br/>
<span>Land of the Lake from whence all rivers run,</span>
<br/>
<span>Land where the hope of all our dreams is won!</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Shall we not somewhere see at close of day</span>
<br/>
<span>The green walls of that country far away,</span>
<br/>
<span>And hear the music of her fountains play?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>So long we have been wandering all this while</span>
<br/>
<span>By many a perilous sea and drifting isle,</span>
<br/>
<span>We scarce shall dare to look thereon and smile.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Yea, when we are drawing very near to thee,</span>
<br/>
<span>And when at last the ivory port we see</span>
<br/>
<span>Our hearts will faint with mere felicity:</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But we shall wake again in gardens bright</span>
<br/>
<span>Of green and gold for infinite delight,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sleeping beneath the solemn mountains white,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>While from the flowery copses still unseen</span>
<br/>
<span>Sing out the crooning birds that ne’er have been</span>
<br/>
<span>Touched by the hand of winter frore and lean;</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And ever living queens that grow not old</span>
<br/>
<span>And poets wise in robes of faerie gold</span>
<br/>
<span>Whisper a wild, sweet song that first was told</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Ere God sat down to make the Milky Way.</span>
<br/>
<span>And in those gardens we shall sleep and play</span>
<br/>
<span>For ever and for ever and a day.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>An, Dwellers at the back of the North Wind,</span>
<br/>
<span>What have we done to you? How have we sinned,</span>
<br/>
<span>That yes should hide beyond the Northern wind?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Land of the Lotus, fallen from the Sun,</span>
<br/>
<span>When shall your hidden, flowery vales be won</span>
<br/>
<span>And all the travail of our way be done?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Very far we have searched; we have even seen</span>
<br/>
<span>The Scythian waste that bears no soft nor green,</span>
<br/>
<span>And near the Hideous Pass our feet have been.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>We have heard Syrens singing all night long</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath the unknown stars their lonely song</span>
<br/>
<span>In friendless seas beyond the Pillars strong.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Nor by the dragon-daughter of Hypocras</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor the vale of the Devil’s head we have feared to pass,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet is our labour lost and vain, alas!</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Scouring the earth from Orkney unto Ind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Tossed on the seas and withered in the wind,</span>
<br/>
<span>We seek and seek your land. How have we sinned?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Or is it all a folly of the wise,</span>
<br/>
<span>Bidding us walk these ways with blinded eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>While all around us real flowers arise?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But, by the very God, we know, we know</span>
<br/>
<span>That somewhere still, beyond the Northern snow</span>
<br/>
<span>Waiting for us the red-rose gardens blow.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-26" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXVI</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Song</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Faeries must be in the woods</span>
<br/>
<span>Or the satyr’s laughing broods⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Tritons in the summer sea,</span>
<br/>
<span>Else how could the dead things be</span>
<br/>
<span>Half so lovely as they are?</span>
<br/>
<span>How could wealth of star on star</span>
<br/>
<span>Dusted o’er the frosty night</span>
<br/>
<span>Fill thy spirit with delight</span>
<br/>
<span>And lead thee from this care of thine</span>
<br/>
<span>Up among the dreams divine,</span>
<br/>
<span>Were it not that each and all</span>
<br/>
<span>Of them that walk the heavenly hall</span>
<br/>
<span>Is in truth a happy isle,</span>
<br/>
<span>Where eternal meadows smile,</span>
<br/>
<span>And golden globes of fruit are seen</span>
<br/>
<span>Twinkling through the orchards green;</span>
<br/>
<span>Were the Other People go</span>
<br/>
<span>On the bright sward to and fro?</span>
<br/>
<span>Atoms dead could never thus</span>
<br/>
<span>Stir the human heart of us</span>
<br/>
<span>Unless the beauty that we see</span>
<br/>
<span>The veil of endless beauty be,</span>
<br/>
<span>Filled full of spirits that have trod</span>
<br/>
<span>Far hence along the heavenly sod</span>
<br/>
<span>And see the bright footprints of God.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-27" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXVII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Ass</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I woke and rose and slipt away</span>
<br/>
<span>To the heathery hills in the morning grey.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>In a field where the dew lay cold and deep</span>
<br/>
<span>I met an ass, new-roused from sleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I stroked his nose and I tickled his ears,</span>
<br/>
<span>And spoke soft words to quiet his fears.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>His eyes stared into the eyes of me</span>
<br/>
<span>And he kissed my hands of his courtesy.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“O big, brown brother out of the waste,</span>
<br/>
<span>How do thistles for breakfast taste?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“And do you rejoice in the dawn divine</span>
<br/>
<span>With a heart that is glad no less than mine?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“For, brother, the depth of your gentle eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>Is strange and mystic as the skies:</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“What are the thoughts that grope behind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Down in the mist of a donkey mind?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“Can it be true, as the wise men tell,</span>
<br/>
<span>That you are a mask of God as well,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“And, as in us, so in you no less</span>
<br/>
<span>Speaks the eternal Loveliness,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“And words of the lips that all things know</span>
<br/>
<span>Among the thoughts of a donkey go?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“However it be, O four-foot brother,</span>
<br/>
<span>Fair to-day is the earth, our mother.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“God send you peace and delight thereof,</span>
<br/>
<span>And all green meat of the waste you love,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>“And guard you well from violent men</span>
<br/>
<span>Who’d put you back in the shafts again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But the ass had far too wise a head</span>
<br/>
<span>To answer one of the things I said,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>So he twitched his fair ears up and down</span>
<br/>
<span>And turned to nuzzle his shoulder brown.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-28" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXVIII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Ballade Mystique</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>The big, red house is bare and lone</span>
<br/>
<span>The stony garden waste and sere</span>
<br/>
<span>With blight of breezes ocean blown</span>
<br/>
<span>To pinch the wakening of the year;</span>
<br/>
<span>My kindly friends with busy cheer</span>
<br/>
<span>My wretchedness could plainly show.</span>
<br/>
<span>They tell me I am lonely here⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>What do they know? What do they know?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>They think that while the gables moan</span>
<br/>
<span>And easements creak in winter drear</span>
<br/>
<span>I should be piteously alone</span>
<br/>
<span>Without the speech of comrades dear;</span>
<br/>
<span>And friendly for my sake they fear,</span>
<br/>
<span>It grieves them thinking of me so</span>
<br/>
<span>While all their happy life is near⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>What do they know? What do they know?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>That I have seen the Dagda’s throne</span>
<br/>
<span>In sunny lands without a tear</span>
<br/>
<span>And found a forest all my own</span>
<br/>
<span>To ward with magic shield and spear,</span>
<br/>
<span>Where, through the stately towers I rear</span>
<br/>
<span>For my desire, around me go</span>
<br/>
<span>Immortal shapes of beauty clear:</span>
<br/>
<span>They do not know, they do not know.</span>
</p>
<div>
<header>
<p lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Envoi</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The friends I have without a peer</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond the western ocean’s glow,</span>
<br/>
<span>Wither the faerie galleys steer,</span>
<br/>
<span>They do not know: how should they know?</span>
</p>
</div>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-29" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXIX</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Night</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I know a little Druid wood</span>
<br/>
<span>Where I would slumber if I could</span>
<br/>
<span>And have the murmuring of the stream</span>
<br/>
<span>To mingle with a midnight dream,</span>
<br/>
<span>And have the holy hazel trees</span>
<br/>
<span>To play above me in the breeze,</span>
<br/>
<span>And smell the thorny eglantine;</span>
<br/>
<span>For there the white owls all night long</span>
<br/>
<span>In the scented gloom divine</span>
<br/>
<span>Hear the wild, strange, tuneless song</span>
<br/>
<span>Of faerie voices, thin and high</span>
<br/>
<span>As the bat’s unearthly cry,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the measure of their shoon</span>
<br/>
<span>Dancing, dancing, under the moon,</span>
<br/>
<span>Until, amid the pale of dawn</span>
<br/>
<span>The wandering stars begin to swoon.⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>Ah, leave the world and come away!</span>
<br/>
<span>The windy folk are in the glade,</span>
<br/>
<span>And men have seen their revels, laid</span>
<br/>
<span>In secret on some flowery lawn</span>
<br/>
<span>Underneath the beechen covers</span>
<br/>
<span>Kings of old, I’ve heard them say,</span>
<br/>
<span>Here have found them faerie lovers</span>
<br/>
<span>That charmed them out of life and kissed</span>
<br/>
<span>Their lips with cold lips unafraid,</span>
<br/>
<span>And such a spell around them made</span>
<br/>
<span>That they have passed beyond the mist</span>
<br/>
<span>And fount eh Country-under-wave.⁠ ⁠…</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Kings of old, whom none could save!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-30" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXX</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Oxford</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>It is well that there are palaces of peace</span>
<br/>
<span>And discipline and dreaming and desire,</span>
<br/>
<span>Lest we forget our heritage and cease</span>
<br/>
<span>The Spirit’s work⁠—to hunger and aspire:</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Lest we forget that we were born divine,</span>
<br/>
<span>Now tangled in red battle’s animal net,</span>
<br/>
<span>Murder the work and lust the anodyne,</span>
<br/>
<span>Pains of the beast ’gainst bestial solace set.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But this shall never be: to us remains</span>
<br/>
<span>One city that has nothing of the beast,</span>
<br/>
<span>That was not built for gross, material gains,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sharp, wolfish power or empire’s glutted feast.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>We are not wholly brute. To us remains</span>
<br/>
<span>A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams,</span>
<br/>
<span>A place of visions and of loosening chains,</span>
<br/>
<span>A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>She was not builded out of common stone</span>
<br/>
<span>But out of all men’s yearning and all prayer</span>
<br/>
<span>That she might live, eternally our own,</span>
<br/>
<span>The Spirit’s stronghold⁠—barred against despair.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-31" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXI</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Hymn (For Boy’s Voices)</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>All the things magicians do</span>
<br/>
<span>Could be done by me and you</span>
<br/>
<span>Freely, if we only knew.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Human children every day</span>
<br/>
<span>Could play at games the faeries play</span>
<br/>
<span>If they were but shown the way.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Every man a God would be</span>
<br/>
<span>Laughing through eternity</span>
<br/>
<span>If as God’s his eyes could see.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>All the wizardries of God⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Slaying matter with a nod,</span>
<br/>
<span>Charming spirits with his rod,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>With the singing of his voice</span>
<br/>
<span>Making lonely lands rejoice,</span>
<br/>
<span>Leaving us no will nor choice,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Drawing headlong me and you</span>
<br/>
<span>As the piping Orpheus drew</span>
<br/>
<span>Man and beast the mountains through,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>By the sweetness of his horn</span>
<br/>
<span>Calling us from lands forlorn</span>
<br/>
<span>Nearer to the widening morn⁠—</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>All that loveliness of power</span>
<br/>
<span>Could be man’s peculiar dower,</span>
<br/>
<span>Even mine, this very hour;</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>We should reach the Hidden Land</span>
<br/>
<span>And grow immortal out of hand,</span>
<br/>
<span>If we could but understand!</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>We could revel day and night</span>
<br/>
<span>In all power and all delight</span>
<br/>
<span>If we learn to think aright.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-32" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">“Our Daily Bread”</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell</span>
<br/>
<span>To raise the unknown. It lies before our feet;</span>
<br/>
<span>There have been men who sank down into Hell</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">In some suburban street,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And some there are that in their daily walks</span>
<br/>
<span>Have met archangels fresh from sight of God,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or watched how in their beans and cabbage-stalks</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Long files of faerie trod.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Often me too the Living voices call</span>
<br/>
<span>In many a vulgar and habitual place,</span>
<br/>
<span>I catch a sight of lands beyond the wall,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">I see a strange god’s face.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And some day this will work upon me so</span>
<br/>
<span>I shall arise and leave both friends and home</span>
<br/>
<span>And over many lands a pilgrim go</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Through alien woods and foam,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Seeking the last steep edges of the earth</span>
<br/>
<span>Whence I may leap into that gulf of light</span>
<br/>
<span>Wherein, before my narrowing Self had birth,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Part of me lived aright.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-33" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXIII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">How He Saw Angus the God</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I heard the swallow sing in the eaves and rose</span>
<br/>
<span>All in a strange delight while others slept,</span>
<br/>
<span>And down the creaking stair, alone, tip-toes,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">So carefully I crept.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>The house was dark with silly blinds yet drawn,</span>
<br/>
<span>But outside the clean air was filled with light,</span>
<br/>
<span>And underneath my feet the cold, wet lawn</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">With dew was twinkling bright.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>The cobwebs hung from every branch and spray</span>
<br/>
<span>Gleaming with pearly strands of laden thread,</span>
<br/>
<span>And long and still the morning shadows lay</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Across the meadows spread.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>At that pure hour when yet no sound of man,</span>
<br/>
<span>Stirs in the whiteness of the wakening earth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Alone through innocent solitudes I ran</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Singing aloud for mirth.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Till I had found the open mountain heath</span>
<br/>
<span>Yellow with gorse, and rested there and stood</span>
<br/>
<span>To gaze upon the misty sea beneath,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Or on the neighbouring wood,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>—That little wood of hazel and tall pine</span>
<br/>
<span>And youngling fir, where oft we have loved to see</span>
<br/>
<span>The level beams of early morning shine</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Freshly from tree to tree.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Through the denser wood there’s many a pool</span>
<br/>
<span>Of deep and night-born shadow lingers yet</span>
<br/>
<span>Where the new-wakened flowers are damp and cool</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">And the long grass is wet.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>In the sweet heather long I rested there</span>
<br/>
<span>Looking upon the dappled, early sky,</span>
<br/>
<span>When suddenly, from out the shining air</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">A god came flashing by.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Swift, naked, eager, pitilessly fair,</span>
<br/>
<span>With a live crown of birds about his head,</span>
<br/>
<span>Singing and fluttering, and his fiery hair,</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">Far out behind him spread,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Streamed like a rippling torch upon the breeze</span>
<br/>
<span>Of his own glorious swiftness: in the grass</span>
<br/>
<span>He bruised no feathery stalk, and through the trees</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">I saw his whiteness pass.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But when I followed him beyond the wood,</span>
<br/>
<span>Lo! He was changed into a solemn bull</span>
<br/>
<span>That there upon the open pasture stood</span>
<br/>
<span class="i1">And browsed his lazy full.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-34" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXIV</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Roads</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of Down</span>
<br/>
<span>With all the world spread out beneath, meadow and sea and town,</span>
<br/>
<span>And ploughlands on the far-off hills that glow with friendly brown.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And ever across the rolling land to the far horizon line,</span>
<br/>
<span>Where the blue hills border the misty west, I see the white roads twine,</span>
<br/>
<span>The rare roads and the fair roads that call this heart of mine.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I see them dip in the valleys and vanish and rise and bend</span>
<br/>
<span>From shadowy dell to windswept fell, and still to the West they wend,</span>
<br/>
<span>And over the cold blue ridge at last to the great world’s uttermost end.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And the call of the roads is upon me, a desire in my spirit has grown</span>
<br/>
<span>To wander forth in the highways, ’twixt earth and sky alone,</span>
<br/>
<span>And seek for the lands no foot has trod and the seas no sail had known:</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>—For the lands to the west of the evening and east of the morning’s birth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Where the gods unseen in their valleys green are glad at the ends of the earth</span>
<br/>
<span>And fear no morrow to bring them sorrow, nor night to quench their mirth.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-35" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXV</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Hesperus</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Through the starry hollow</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the summer night</span>
<br/>
<span>I would follow, follow</span>
<br/>
<span>Hesperus the bright,</span>
<br/>
<span>To seek beyond the western wave</span>
<br/>
<span>His garden of delight.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Hesperus the fairest</span>
<br/>
<span>Of all gods that are,</span>
<br/>
<span>Peace and dreams thou bearest</span>
<br/>
<span>In thy shadowy car,</span>
<br/>
<span>And often in my evening walks</span>
<br/>
<span>I’ve blessed thee from afar.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Stars without number,</span>
<br/>
<span>Dust the moon of night,</span>
<br/>
<span>Thou the early slumber</span>
<br/>
<span>And the still delight</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the gentle twilit hours</span>
<br/>
<span>Rulest in thy right.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>When the pale skies shiver,</span>
<br/>
<span>Seeing night is done,</span>
<br/>
<span>Past the ocean-river,</span>
<br/>
<span>Lightly thou dost run,</span>
<br/>
<span>To look for pleasant, sleepy lands,</span>
<br/>
<span>That never fear the sun.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Where, beyond the waters</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the outer sea,</span>
<br/>
<span>Thy triple crown of daughters</span>
<br/>
<span>That guards the golden tree</span>
<br/>
<span>Sing out across the lonely tide</span>
<br/>
<span>A welcome home to thee.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>And while the old, old dragon</span>
<br/>
<span>For joy lifts up his head,</span>
<br/>
<span>They bring thee forth a flagon</span>
<br/>
<span>Of nectar foaming red,</span>
<br/>
<span>And underneath the drowsy trees</span>
<br/>
<span>Of poppies strew thy bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Ah! that I could follow</span>
<br/>
<span>In thy footsteps bright,</span>
<br/>
<span>Through the starry hollow</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the summer night,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sloping down the western ways</span>
<br/>
<span>To find my heart’s delight!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-36" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXVI</h4>
<p epub:type="title">The Star Bath</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>A place uplifted towards the midnight sky</span>
<br/>
<span>Far, far away among the mountains old,</span>
<br/>
<span>A treeless waste of rocks and freezing cold,</span>
<br/>
<span>Where the dead, cheerless moon rode neighbouring by⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>And in the midst a silent tarn there lay,</span>
<br/>
<span>A narrow pool, cold as the tide that flows</span>
<br/>
<span>Where monstrous bergs beyond Varanger stray,</span>
<br/>
<span>Rising from sunless depths that no man knows;</span>
<br/>
<span>Thither as clustering fireflies have I seen</span>
<br/>
<span>At fixèd seasons all the stars come down</span>
<br/>
<span>To wash in that cold wave their brightness clean</span>
<br/>
<span>And win the special fire wherewith they crown</span>
<br/>
<span>The wintry heavens in frost. Even as a flock</span>
<br/>
<span>Of falling birds, down to the pool they came.</span>
<br/>
<span>I saw them and I heard the icy shock</span>
<br/>
<span>Of stars engulfed with hissing of faint flame</span>
<br/>
<span>—Ages ago before the birth of men</span>
<br/>
<span>Or earliest beast. Yet I was still the same</span>
<br/>
<span>That now remember, knowing not where or when.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-37" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXVII</h4>
<p lang="la" epub:type="title" xml:lang="la">Tu Ne Quæsieris</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>For all the lore of Lodge and Myers</span>
<br/>
<span>I cannot heal my torn desires,</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor hope for all that man can speer</span>
<br/>
<span>To make the riddling earth grow clear.</span>
<br/>
<span>Though it were sure and proven well</span>
<br/>
<span>That I shall prosper, as they tell,</span>
<br/>
<span>In fields beneath a different sun</span>
<br/>
<span>By shores where other oceans run,</span>
<br/>
<span>When this live body that was I</span>
<br/>
<span>Lies hidden from the cheerful sky,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet what were endless lives to me</span>
<br/>
<span>If still my narrow self I be</span>
<br/>
<span>And hope and fail and struggle still,</span>
<br/>
<span>And break my will against God’s will,</span>
<br/>
<span>To play for stakes of pleasure and pain</span>
<br/>
<span>And hope and fail and hope again,</span>
<br/>
<span>Deluded, thwarted, striving elf</span>
<br/>
<span>That through the window of my self</span>
<br/>
<span>As through a dark glass scarce can see</span>
<br/>
<span>A warped and masked reality?</span>
<br/>
<span>But when this searching thought of mine</span>
<br/>
<span>Is mingled in the large Divine,</span>
<br/>
<span>And laughter that was in my mouth</span>
<br/>
<span>Runs through the breezes of the South,</span>
<br/>
<span>When glory I have built in dreams</span>
<br/>
<span>Along some fiery sunset gleams,</span>
<br/>
<span>And my dead sin and foolishness</span>
<br/>
<span>Grow one with Nature’s whole distress,</span>
<br/>
<span>To perfect being I shall win,</span>
<br/>
<span>And where I end will Life begin.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-38" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXVIII</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Lullaby</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Lullaby! Lullaby!</span>
<br/>
<span>There’s a tower strong and high</span>
<br/>
<span>Built of oak and brick and stone,</span>
<br/>
<span>Stands before a wood alone.</span>
<br/>
<span>The doors are of the oak so brown</span>
<br/>
<span>As any ale in Oxford town,</span>
<br/>
<span>The walls are builded warm and thick</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the old red Roman brick,</span>
<br/>
<span>The good grey stone is over all</span>
<br/>
<span>In arch and floor of the tower tall.</span>
<br/>
<span>And maidens three are living there</span>
<br/>
<span>All in the upper chamber fair,</span>
<br/>
<span>Hung with silver, hung with pall,</span>
<br/>
<span>And stories painted on the wall.</span>
<br/>
<span>And softly goes the whirring loom</span>
<br/>
<span>In my ladies’ upper room,</span>
<br/>
<span>For they shall spin both night and day</span>
<br/>
<span>Until the stars do pass away.</span>
<br/>
<span>But every night at evèning.</span>
<br/>
<span>The window open wide they fling,</span>
<br/>
<span>And one of them says a word they know</span>
<br/>
<span>And out as three white swans they go,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the murmuring of the woods is drowned</span>
<br/>
<span>In the soft wings’ whirring sound,</span>
<br/>
<span>As they go flying round, around,</span>
<br/>
<span>Singing in swans’ voices high</span>
<br/>
<span>A lonely, lovely lullaby.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-39" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXXIX</h4>
<p epub:type="title">World’s Desire</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Love, there is a castle built in a country desolate,</span>
<br/>
<span>On a rock above a forest where the trees are grim and great,</span>
<br/>
<span>Blasted with the lightning sharp⁠—giant boulders strewn between,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the mountains rise above, and the cold ravine</span>
<br/>
<span>Echoes to the crushing roar and thunder of a mighty river</span>
<br/>
<span>Raging down a cataract. Very tower and forest quiver</span>
<br/>
<span>And the grey wolves are afraid and the call of birds is drowned,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the thought and speech of man in the boiling water’s sound.</span>
<br/>
<span>But upon the further side of the barren, sharp ravine</span>
<br/>
<span>With the sunlight on its turrets is the castle seen,</span>
<br/>
<span>Calm and very wonderful, white above the green</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the wet and waving forest, slanted all away,</span>
<br/>
<span>Because the driving Northern wind will not rest by night or day.</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet the towers are sure above, very mighty is the stead,</span>
<br/>
<span>The gates are made of ivory, the roofs of copper red.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Round and round the warders grave walk upon the walls for ever</span>
<br/>
<span>And the wakeful dragons couch in the ports of ivory,</span>
<br/>
<span>Nothing is can trouble it, hate of the gods nor man’s endeavour,</span>
<br/>
<span>And it shall be a resting-place, dear heart, for you and me.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Through the wet and waving forest with an age-old sorrow laden</span>
<br/>
<span>Singing of the world’s regret wanders wild the faerie maiden,</span>
<br/>
<span>Through the thistle and the brier, through the tangles of the thorn,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till her eyes be dim with weeping and her homeless feet are torn.</span>
<br/>
<span>Often to the castle gate up she looks with vain endeavour,</span>
<br/>
<span>For her soulless loveliness to the castle winneth never.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But within the sacred court, hidden high upon the mountain,</span>
<br/>
<span>Wandering in the castle gardens lovely folk enough there be,</span>
<br/>
<span>Breathing in another air, drinking of a purer fountain,</span>
<br/>
<span>And among that folk, beloved, there’s a place for you and me.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="spirits-in-bondage-chapter-40" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<hgroup>
<h4 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XL</h4>
<p epub:type="title">Death in Battle</p>
</hgroup>
<p>
<span>Open the gates for me,</span>
<br/>
<span>Open the gates of the peaceful castle, rosy in the West,</span>
<br/>
<span>In the sweet dim Isle of Apples over the wide sea’s breast</span>
<br/>
<span>Open the gates for me!</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Sorely pressed have I been</span>
<br/>
<span>And driven and hurt beyond bearing this summer day,</span>
<br/>
<span>But the heat and the pain together suddenly fall away,</span>
<br/>
<span>All’s cool and green.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>But a moment agone,</span>
<br/>
<span>Among men cursing in fight and toiling, blinded I fought,</span>
<br/>
<span>But the labour passed on a sudden even as a passing thought,</span>
<br/>
<span>And now⁠—alone!</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>Ah, to be ever alone,</span>
<br/>
<span>In flowery valleys among the mountains and silent wastes untrod,</span>
<br/>
<span>In the dewy upland places, in the garden of God,</span>
<br/>
<span>This would atone!</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>I shall not see</span>
<br/>
<span>The brutal, crowded faces around me, that in their toil have grown</span>
<br/>
<span>Into the faces of devils⁠—yea, even as my own⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>When I find thee,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span>O Country of Dreams!</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond the tide of the ocean, hidden and sunk away,</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of the sound of battles, near to the end of day,</span>
<br/>
<span>Full of dim woods and streams.</span>
</p>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="dymer" epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
<h2 epub:type="title">Dymer</h2>
<section id="dymer-epigraph" epub:type="epigraph">
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:verse">
<p>
<span>“Nine nights I hung upon the Tree,</span>
<br/>
<span>wounded with the spear, as an offering to</span>
<br/>
<span>Odin, myself sacrificed to myself.”</span>
</p>
<cite>Havamal</cite>
</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="dymer-halftitlepage" epub:type="halftitlepage">
<h3 epub:type="fulltitle">Dymer</h3>
</section>
<article id="dymer-chapter-1" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">I</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>You stranger, long before your glance can light</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon these words, time will have washed away</span>
<br/>
<span>The moment when I first took pen to write,</span>
<br/>
<span>With all my road before me⁠—yet to-day,</span>
<br/>
<span>Here, if at all, we meet: the unfashioned clay</span>
<br/>
<span>Ready to both our hands; both hushed to see</span>
<br/>
<span>That which is nowhere yet come forth and be.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>This moment, if you join me, we begin</span>
<br/>
<span>A partnership where both must toil to hold</span>
<br/>
<span>The clue that I caught first. We lose or win</span>
<br/>
<span>Together; if you read, you are enrolled.</span>
<br/>
<span>And first, a marvel⁠—Who could have foretold</span>
<br/>
<span>That in the city which men called in scorn</span>
<br/>
<span>The Perfect City, Dymer could be born?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>There you’d have thought the gods were smothered down</span>
<br/>
<span>Forever, and the keys were turned on fate.</span>
<br/>
<span>No hour was left unchartered in that town,</span>
<br/>
<span>And love was in a schedule and the State</span>
<br/>
<span>Chose for eugenic reasons who should mate</span>
<br/>
<span>With whom, and when. Each idle song and dance</span>
<br/>
<span>Was fixed by law and nothing left to chance.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>For some of the last Platonists had founded</span>
<br/>
<span>That city of old. And mastery they made</span>
<br/>
<span>An island of what ought to be, surrounded</span>
<br/>
<span>By this gross world of easier light and shade.</span>
<br/>
<span>All answering to the master’s dream they laid</span>
<br/>
<span>The strong foundations, torturing into stone</span>
<br/>
<span>Each bubble that the Academy had blown.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>This people were so pure, so law-abiding,</span>
<br/>
<span>So logical, they made the heavens afraid:</span>
<br/>
<span>They sent the very swallows into hiding</span>
<br/>
<span>By their appalling chastity dismayed:</span>
<br/>
<span>More soberly the lambs in spring time played</span>
<br/>
<span>Because of them: and ghosts dissolved in shame</span>
<br/>
<span>Before their common-sense⁠—till Dymer came.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>At Dymer’s birth no comets scared the nation,</span>
<br/>
<span>The public crêche engulfed him with the rest,</span>
<br/>
<span>And twenty separate Boards of Education</span>
<br/>
<span>Closed round him. He was passed through every test,</span>
<br/>
<span>Was vaccinated, numbered, washed and dressed,</span>
<br/>
<span>Proctored, inspected, whipt, examined weekly,</span>
<br/>
<span>And for some nineteen years he bore it meekly.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>For nineteen years they worked upon his soul,</span>
<br/>
<span>Refining, chipping, moulding and adorning.</span>
<br/>
<span>Then came the moment that undid the whole⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>The ripple of rude life without a warning.</span>
<br/>
<span>It came in lecture-time one April morning</span>
<br/>
<span>—Alas for laws and locks, reproach and praise,</span>
<br/>
<span>Who ever learned to censor the spring days?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>A little breeze came stirring to his cheek.</span>
<br/>
<span>He looked up to the window. A brown bird</span>
<br/>
<span>Perched on the sill, bent down to whet his beak</span>
<br/>
<span>With darting head⁠—Poor Dymer watched and stirred</span>
<br/>
<span>Uneasily. The lecturer’s voice he heard</span>
<br/>
<span>Still droning from the dais. The narrow room</span>
<br/>
<span>Was drowsy, over-solemn, filled with gloom.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He yawned, and a voluptuous laziness</span>
<br/>
<span>Tingled down all his spine and loosed his knees,</span>
<br/>
<span>Slow-drawn, like an invisible caress.</span>
<br/>
<span>He laughed⁠—The lecturer stopped like one that sees</span>
<br/>
<span>A Ghost, then frowned and murmured, “Silence, please.”</span>
<br/>
<span>That moment saw the soul of Dymer hang</span>
<br/>
<span>In the balance⁠—Louder then his laughter rang.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The whole room watched with unbelieving awe,</span>
<br/>
<span>He rose and staggered rising. From his lips</span>
<br/>
<span>Broke yet again the idiot-like guffaw.</span>
<br/>
<span>He felt the spirit in his finger tips,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then swinging his right arm⁠—a wide ellipse</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet lazily⁠—he struck the lecturer’s head.</span>
<br/>
<span>The old man tittered, lurched and dropt drown dead.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Out of the silent room, out of the dark,</span>
<br/>
<span>Into the sum-stream Dymer passed, and there</span>
<br/>
<span>The sudden breezes, the high hanging lark</span>
<br/>
<span>The milk-white clouds sailing in polished air,</span>
<br/>
<span>Suddenly flashed about him like a blare</span>
<br/>
<span>Of trumpets. And no cry was raised behind him.</span>
<br/>
<span>His class sat dazed. They dared not go to find him.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Yet wonderfully some rumour spread abroad⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>An inarticulate sense of life renewing</span>
<br/>
<span>In each young heart⁠—He whistled down the road:</span>
<br/>
<span>Men said: “There’s Dymer”⁠—“Why, what’s Dymer doing?”</span>
<br/>
<span>“I don’t know”⁠—“Look, there’s Dymer,”⁠—far pursuing</span>
<br/>
<span>With troubled eyes⁠—A long mysterious “Oh”</span>
<br/>
<span>Sighed from a hundred throats to see him go.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Down the white street and past the gate and forth</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond the wall he came to grassy places.</span>
<br/>
<span>There was a shifting wind to West and North</span>
<br/>
<span>With clouds in heeling squadron running races.</span>
<br/>
<span>The shadows following on the sunlight’s traces</span>
<br/>
<span>Crossed the whole field and each wild flower within it</span>
<br/>
<span>With change of wavering glories every minute.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>There was a river, flushed with rains, between</span>
<br/>
<span>The flat fields and a forest’s willowy edge.</span>
<br/>
<span>A sauntering pace he shuffled on the green,</span>
<br/>
<span>He kicked his boots against the crackly sedge</span>
<br/>
<span>And tore his hands in many a furzy hedge.</span>
<br/>
<span>He saw his feet and ankles gilded round</span>
<br/>
<span>With buttercups that carpeted the ground.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He looked back then. The line of a low hill</span>
<br/>
<span>Had hid the city’s towers and domes from sight;</span>
<br/>
<span>He stopt: he felt a break of sunlight spill</span>
<br/>
<span>Around him sudden waves of searching light.</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon the earth was green, and gold, and white,</span>
<br/>
<span>Smothering his feet. He felt his city dress</span>
<br/>
<span>An insult to that April cheerfulness.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He said: “I’ve worn this dust heap long enough,</span>
<br/>
<span>Here goes!” And forthwith in the open field</span>
<br/>
<span>He stripped away that prison of sad stuff:</span>
<br/>
<span>Socks, jacket, shirt and breeches off he peeled</span>
<br/>
<span>And rose up mother-naked with no shield</span>
<br/>
<span>Against the sun: then stood awhile to play</span>
<br/>
<span>With bare toes dabbling in cold river clay.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Forward again, and sometimes leaping high</span>
<br/>
<span>With arms outspread as though he would embrace</span>
<br/>
<span>In one act all the circle of the sky:</span>
<br/>
<span>Sometimes he rested in a leafier place,</span>
<br/>
<span>And crushed the wet, cool flowers against his face:</span>
<br/>
<span>And once he cried aloud, “Oh world, oh day,</span>
<br/>
<span>Let, let me,”⁠—and then found no prayer to say.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Up furrows still unpierced with earliest crop</span>
<br/>
<span>He marched. Through woods he strolled from flower to flower,</span>
<br/>
<span>And over hills. As ointment drop by drop</span>
<br/>
<span>Preciously meted out, so hour by hour</span>
<br/>
<span>The day slipped through his hands: and now the power</span>
<br/>
<span>Failed in his feet from walking. He was done,</span>
<br/>
<span>Hungry and cold. That moment sank the sun.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He lingered⁠—Looking up, he saw ahead</span>
<br/>
<span>The black and bristling frontage of a wood</span>
<br/>
<span>And over it the large sky swimming red,</span>
<br/>
<span>Freckled with homeward crows. Surprised he stood</span>
<br/>
<span>To feel that wideness quenching his hot mood,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then shouted, “Trembling darkness, trembling green,</span>
<br/>
<span>What do you mean, wild wood, what do you mean?”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He shouted. But the solitude received</span>
<br/>
<span>His noise into her noiselessness, his fire</span>
<br/>
<span>Into her calm. Perhaps he half believed</span>
<br/>
<span>Some answer yet would come to his desire.</span>
<br/>
<span>The hushed air quivered softly like a wire</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon his voice. It echoed, it was gone:</span>
<br/>
<span>The quiet and the quiet dark went on.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He rushed into the wood. He struck and stumbled</span>
<br/>
<span>On hidden roots. He grouped and scratched his face.</span>
<br/>
<span>The little birds woke chattering where he fumbled.</span>
<br/>
<span>The stray cat stood, paw lifted, in mid-chase.</span>
<br/>
<span>There is a windless calm in such a place.</span>
<br/>
<span>A sense of being indoors⁠—so crowded stand</span>
<br/>
<span>The living trees, watching on every hand:</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>A sense of trespass⁠—such as in the hall</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the wrong house, one time, to me befell.</span>
<br/>
<span>Groping between the hatstand and the wall⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>A clear voice from above me like a bell,</span>
<br/>
<span>The sweet voice of a woman asking “Well?”</span>
<br/>
<span>No more than this. And as I fled I wondered</span>
<br/>
<span>Into whose alien story I had blundered.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>A like thing fell to Dymer. Bending low,</span>
<br/>
<span>Feeling his way he went. The curtained air</span>
<br/>
<span>Sighed into sound above his head, as though</span>
<br/>
<span>Stringed instruments and horns were riding there.</span>
<br/>
<span>It passed and at its passing stirred his hair.</span>
<br/>
<span>He stood intent to hear. He heard again</span>
<br/>
<span>And checked his breath half-drawn, as if with pain.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>That music could have crumbled proud belief</span>
<br/>
<span>With doubt, or in the bosom of the sage</span>
<br/>
<span>Madden the heart that had outmastered grief,</span>
<br/>
<span>And flood with tears the eyes of frozen age</span>
<br/>
<span>And turn the young man’s feet to pilgrimage⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>So sharp it was, so sure a path it found,</span>
<br/>
<span>Soulward with stabbing wounds of bitter sounds.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>It died out on the middle of a note,</span>
<br/>
<span>As though it failed at the urge of its own meaning.</span>
<br/>
<span>It left him with life quivering at the throat,</span>
<br/>
<span>Limbs shaken and wet cheeks and body leaning,</span>
<br/>
<span>With strain towards the sound and senses gleaning</span>
<br/>
<span>The last, least, ebbing ripple of the air,</span>
<br/>
<span>Searching the emptied darkness, muttering “Where?”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then followed such a time as is forgotten</span>
<br/>
<span>With morning light, but in the passing seems</span>
<br/>
<span>Unending. Where he grasped the branch was rotten,</span>
<br/>
<span>Where he trod forth in haste the forest streams</span>
<br/>
<span>Laid wait for him. Like men in fever dreams</span>
<br/>
<span>Climbing an endless rope, he laboured much</span>
<br/>
<span>And gained no ground. He reached and could not touch.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And often out of darkness like a swell</span>
<br/>
<span>That grows up from no wind upon blue sea,</span>
<br/>
<span>He heard the music, unendurable</span>
<br/>
<span>In stealing sweetness wind from tree to tree.</span>
<br/>
<span>Battered and bruised in body and soul was he</span>
<br/>
<span>When first he saw a little lightness growing</span>
<br/>
<span>Ahead: and from that light the sound was flowing.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The trees were fewer now: and gladly nearing</span>
<br/>
<span>That light, he saw the stars. For sky was there,</span>
<br/>
<span>And smoother grass, white flowered⁠—a forest clearing</span>
<br/>
<span>Set in seven miles of forest, secreter</span>
<br/>
<span>Than valleys in the tops of clouds, more fair</span>
<br/>
<span>Than greenery under snow or desert water</span>
<br/>
<span>Or the white peace descending after slaughter.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>As some who have been wounded beyond healing</span>
<br/>
<span>Wake, or half wake, once only and so bless,</span>
<br/>
<span>Far off the lamplight travelling on the ceiling.</span>
<br/>
<span>A disk of pale light filled with peacefulness</span>
<br/>
<span>And wonder if this is the <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">C.C.S.</abbr>,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or home, or heaven, or dreams⁠—then sighing win</span>
<br/>
<span>Wise, ignorant death before the pains begin:</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>So Dymer in the wood-lawn blessed the light,</span>
<br/>
<span>A still light, rosy, clear, and filled with sounds.</span>
<br/>
<span>Here was some pile of building which the night</span>
<br/>
<span>Made larger. Spiry shadows rose all round,</span>
<br/>
<span>But through the open door appeared profound</span>
<br/>
<span>Recesses of pure light⁠—fire with no flame⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>And out of that deep light the music came.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Tip-toes he slunk towards it where the grass</span>
<br/>
<span>Was twinkling in a lane of light before</span>
<br/>
<span>The archway. There was neither fence to pass</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor word of challenge given, nor bolted door,</span>
<br/>
<span>But where it’s open, open evermore,</span>
<br/>
<span>No knocker and no porter and no guard,</span>
<br/>
<span>For very strangeness entering in grows hard.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-1-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Breath not! Speak not! Walk gently. Someone’s here,</span>
<br/>
<span>Why have they left heir house with the door so wide?</span>
<br/>
<span>There must be someone.⁠ ⁠… Dymer hung in fear</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon the threshold, longing and big-eyed.</span>
<br/>
<span>At last he squared he shoulders, smote his side</span>
<br/>
<span>And called, “I’m here. Now let the feast begin.</span>
<br/>
<span>I’m coming now. I’m Dymer,” and went in.</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-2" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">II</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>More light. Another step, and still more light</span>
<br/>
<span>Opening ahead. It swilled with soft excess,</span>
<br/>
<span>His eyes yet quivering from the dregs of night,</span>
<br/>
<span>And it was nowhere more and nowhere less:</span>
<br/>
<span>In it no shadows were. He could not guess</span>
<br/>
<span>Its fountain. Wondering round around he turned:</span>
<br/>
<span>Still on each side the level glory burned.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Far into the dome to where his gaze was lost</span>
<br/>
<span>The deepening roof shone clear as stones that lie</span>
<br/>
<span>In-shore beneath pure seas. The aisles, that crossed</span>
<br/>
<span>Like forests of white stone their arms on high,</span>
<br/>
<span>Past pillar after pillar dragged his eye</span>
<br/>
<span>In unobscured perspective till the sight</span>
<br/>
<span>Was weary. And there also was the light.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Look with my eyes. Conceive yourself above</span>
<br/>
<span>And hanging in the dome: and thence through space</span>
<br/>
<span>Look down. See Dymer, dwarfed and naked, move,</span>
<br/>
<span>A white blot on the floor, at such a pace</span>
<br/>
<span>As boats that hardly seem to have changed place</span>
<br/>
<span>Once in an hour when from the cliffs we spy</span>
<br/>
<span>The same ship always smoking towards the sky.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The shouting mood had withered from his heart;</span>
<br/>
<span>The oppression of huge places wrapped him round.</span>
<br/>
<span>A great misgiving sent its fluttering dart</span>
<br/>
<span>Deep into him⁠—some fear of being found,</span>
<br/>
<span>Some hope to find he knew not what. The sound</span>
<br/>
<span>Of music, never ceasing, took the role</span>
<br/>
<span>Of silence and like silence numbed his soul.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Till, as he turned a corner, his deep awe</span>
<br/>
<span>Broke with a sudden start. For straight ahead,</span>
<br/>
<span>Far off, a wild eyed, naked man he saw</span>
<br/>
<span>That came to meet him: and beyond was spread</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet further depth of light. With quickening tread</span>
<br/>
<span>He leaped towards the shape. Then stooped and smiled</span>
<br/>
<span>Before a mirror, wondering like a child.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Beside the glass, unguarded, for the claiming,</span>
<br/>
<span>Like a great patch of flowers upon the wall</span>
<br/>
<span>Hung every kind of clothes: silk, feathers flaming,</span>
<br/>
<span>Leopard skin, furry mantles like the fall</span>
<br/>
<span>Of deep mid-winter snows. Upon them all</span>
<br/>
<span>Hung the faint smell of cedar, and the dyes</span>
<br/>
<span>Were bright as blood and clear as morning skies.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He turned from the white spectre in the glass</span>
<br/>
<span>And looked at these. Remember, he had worn</span>
<br/>
<span>Thro’ winter slush, thro’ summer flowers and grass</span>
<br/>
<span>One kind of solemn stuff since he was born,</span>
<br/>
<span>With badge of year and rank. He laughed in score</span>
<br/>
<span>And cried, “Here is no law, nor eye to see,</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor leave of entry given. Why should there be?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Have done with that⁠—you threw it all behind.</span>
<br/>
<span>Henceforth I ask no licence where I need.</span>
<br/>
<span>It’s on, on, on, though I go mad and blind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Though knees ache and lungs labour and feet bleed,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or else⁠—it’s home again: to sleep and feed,</span>
<br/>
<span>And work, and hate them always and obey</span>
<br/>
<span>And loathe the punctual rise of each new day.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He made mad work among them as he dressed,</span>
<br/>
<span>With motley choice and litter on the floor,</span>
<br/>
<span>And each thing as he found it seemed the best.</span>
<br/>
<span>He wondered that he had not known before</span>
<br/>
<span>How fair a man he was. “I’ll creep no more</span>
<br/>
<span>In secret,” Dymer said. “But I’ll go back</span>
<br/>
<span>And drive them all to freedom on this track.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He turned towards the glass. The space looked smaller</span>
<br/>
<span>Behind him now. Himself in royal guise</span>
<br/>
<span>Filled the whole frame⁠—a nobler shape and taller,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till suddenly he started with surprise,</span>
<br/>
<span>Catching, by chance, his own familiar eyes,</span>
<br/>
<span>Fevered, yet still the same, without their share</span>
<br/>
<span>Of bravery, undeceived and watching there.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Yet, as he turned, he cried, “The rest remain.⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>If they rebelled⁠ ⁠… if they should find me here,</span>
<br/>
<span>We’d pluck the whole taut fabric from the strain,</span>
<br/>
<span>Hew down the city, let live earth appear!</span>
<br/>
<span>—Old men and barren women whom through fear</span>
<br/>
<span>We have suffered to be masters in our home,</span>
<br/>
<span>Hide! hide! for we are angry and we come.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Thus feeding on vain fancy, covering round</span>
<br/>
<span>His hunger, his great loneliness arraying</span>
<br/>
<span>In facile dreams until the qualm was drowned,</span>
<br/>
<span>The boy went on. Through endless arches straying</span>
<br/>
<span>With casual tread he sauntered, manly playing</span>
<br/>
<span>At manhood lest more loss of faith betide him,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till lo! he saw a table set beside him.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>When Dymer saw this sight, he leaped for mirth,</span>
<br/>
<span>He clapped his hands, his eye lit like a lover’s.</span>
<br/>
<span>He had a hunger in him that was worth</span>
<br/>
<span>Ten cities. Here was silver, glass and covers.</span>
<br/>
<span>Cold peacock, prawns in aspic, eggs of plovers,</span>
<br/>
<span>Raised pies that stood like castles, gleaming fishes</span>
<br/>
<span>And bright fruit with broad leaves around the dishes.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>If ever you have passed a café door</span>
<br/>
<span>And lingered in the dusk of a June day,</span>
<br/>
<span>Fresh from the road, sweat-sodden and foot-sore,</span>
<br/>
<span>And heard the plates clink and the music play,</span>
<br/>
<span>With laughter, with white tables far away,</span>
<br/>
<span>With many lights⁠—conceive how Dymer ran</span>
<br/>
<span>To table, looked once round him, and began.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>That table seemed unending. Here and there</span>
<br/>
<span>Were broken meats, bread crumbled, flowers defaced,</span>
<br/>
<span>—A napkin, with white petals, on a chair,</span>
<br/>
<span>—A glass already tasted, still to taste.</span>
<br/>
<span>It seemed that a great host had fed in haste</span>
<br/>
<span>And gone: yet left a thousand places more</span>
<br/>
<span>Untouched, wherein no guest had sat before.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>There in the lonely splendour Dymer ate,</span>
<br/>
<span>As thieves eat, ever watching, half in fear.</span>
<br/>
<span>He blamed his evil fortune. “I come late.</span>
<br/>
<span>Whose board was this? What company sat here?</span>
<br/>
<span>What women with wise mouths, what comrades dear</span>
<br/>
<span>Who would have made me welcome as the one</span>
<br/>
<span>Free-born of all my race and cried, ‘Well done!’ ”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Remember, yet again, he had grown up</span>
<br/>
<span>On rations and on scientific food,</span>
<br/>
<span>At common boards, with water in his cup,</span>
<br/>
<span>One mess alike for every day and mood:</span>
<br/>
<span>But here, at his right hand, a flagon stood.</span>
<br/>
<span>He raised it, paused before he drank, and laughed.</span>
<br/>
<span>“I’ll drown their Perfect City in this draught.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He fingered the cold neck. He saw within,</span>
<br/>
<span>Like a strange sky, some liquor that foamed blue</span>
<br/>
<span>And murmured. Standing now with pointed chin</span>
<br/>
<span>And head thrown back, he tasted. Rapture flew</span>
<br/>
<span>Through every vein. That moment louder grew</span>
<br/>
<span>The music and swelled forth a trumpet note.</span>
<br/>
<span>He ceased and put one hand up to his throat.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then heedlessly he let the flagon sink</span>
<br/>
<span>In his right hand. His staring eyes were caught</span>
<br/>
<span>In distance, as of one who tries to think</span>
<br/>
<span>A thought that is still waiting to be thought.</span>
<br/>
<span>There was a riot in his heart that brought</span>
<br/>
<span>The loud blood to the temples. A great voice</span>
<br/>
<span>Sprang to his lips unsummoned, with no choice.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Ah! but the eyes are open, the dream is broken!</span>
<br/>
<span>To sack the Perfect City?⁠ ⁠… a fool’s deed</span>
<br/>
<span>For Dymer! Folly of follies I have spoken!</span>
<br/>
<span>I am the wanderer, new born, newly freed⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>A thousand times they have warned me of men’s greed</span>
<br/>
<span>For joy, for the good that all desire, but never</span>
<br/>
<span>Till now I knew the wild heat of the endeavour.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Some day I will come back to break the City,</span>
<br/>
<span>—Not now. Perhaps when age is white and bleak</span>
<br/>
<span>—Not now. I am in haste. O God, the pity</span>
<br/>
<span>Of all my life till this, groping and weak,</span>
<br/>
<span>The shadow of itself! But now to seek</span>
<br/>
<span>That true most ancient glory whose white glance</span>
<br/>
<span>Was lost through the whole world by evil chance!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“I was a dull, cowed thing from the beginning.</span>
<br/>
<span>Dymer the drudge, the blackleg who obeyed.</span>
<br/>
<span>Desire shall teach me now. If this be sinning,</span>
<br/>
<span>Good luck to it! O splendour long delayed,</span>
<br/>
<span>Beautiful world of mine, O world arrayed</span>
<br/>
<span>For bridal, flower and forest, wave and field,</span>
<br/>
<span>I come to be your lover. Loveliest, yield!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“World, I will prove you. Lest it should be said</span>
<br/>
<span>There was man who loved the earth: his heart</span>
<br/>
<span>Was nothing but that love. With doing tread</span>
<br/>
<span>He worshipt the loved grass: and every start</span>
<br/>
<span>Of every bird from cover, the least part</span>
<br/>
<span>Of every flower he held in awe. Yet earth</span>
<br/>
<span>Gave him no joy between his death and birth.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“I know my good is hidden at your breast.</span>
<br/>
<span>There is a sound of great good in my ear,</span>
<br/>
<span>Like wings. And, oh! this moment is the best;</span>
<br/>
<span>I shall not fail⁠—I taste it⁠—it comes near.</span>
<br/>
<span>As men from a dark dungeon see the clear</span>
<br/>
<span>Stars shining and the filled streams far away,</span>
<br/>
<span>I hear your promise booming and obey.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“This forest lies a thousand miles, perhaps,</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond where I am come. And farther still</span>
<br/>
<span>The rivers wander seaward with smooth lapse,</span>
<br/>
<span>And there is cliff and cottage, tower and hill.</span>
<br/>
<span>Somewhere, before the world’s end, I shall fill</span>
<br/>
<span>My spirit at earth’s pap. For earth must hold</span>
<br/>
<span>One rich thing sealed as Dymer’s from of old.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“One rich thing⁠—or, it may be, more than this⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>Might I not reach the borders of a land</span>
<br/>
<span>That ought to have been mine? And there, the bliss</span>
<br/>
<span>Of free speech, there the eyes that understand,</span>
<br/>
<span>The men free grown, not modelled by the hand</span>
<br/>
<span>Of masters⁠—men that know, or men that seek,</span>
<br/>
<span>—They will not gape and murmur when I speak.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then, as he ceased, amid the farther wall</span>
<br/>
<span>He saw a curtained and low lintelled door;</span>
<br/>
<span>—Dark curtains, sweepy fold, night-purple pall,</span>
<br/>
<span>He thought he had not noticed it before.</span>
<br/>
<span>Sudden desire for darkness overbore</span>
<br/>
<span>His will, and drew him towards it. All was blind</span>
<br/>
<span>Within. He passed. The curtains closed behind.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He entered a void. Night-scented flowers</span>
<br/>
<span>Breathed there, but this was darker than the night</span>
<br/>
<span>That is most black with beating thunder-showers,</span>
<br/>
<span>—A disembodied world where depth and height</span>
<br/>
<span>And distance were unmade. No seam of light</span>
<br/>
<span>Showed through. It was a world not made for seeing,</span>
<br/>
<span>One pure, one undivided sense of being.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Through darkness smooth as amber, warily, slowly</span>
<br/>
<span>He moved. The floor was soft beneath his feet.</span>
<br/>
<span>A cool smell that was holy and unholy,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sharp like the very spring and roughly sweet,</span>
<br/>
<span>Blew towards him: and he felt his fingers meet</span>
<br/>
<span>Broad leaves and wiry stems that at his will</span>
<br/>
<span>Unclosed before and closed behind him still.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>With body intent he felt the foliage quiver</span>
<br/>
<span>On breast and thighs. With groping arms he made</span>
<br/>
<span>Wide passes in the air. A sacred shiver</span>
<br/>
<span>Of joy from the heart’s centre oddly strayed</span>
<br/>
<span>To every nerve. Deep sighing, much afraid,</span>
<br/>
<span>Much wondering, he went on: then, stooping, found</span>
<br/>
<span>A knee-depth of warm pillows on the ground.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And there it was sweet rapture to lie still,</span>
<br/>
<span>Eyes open on the dark. A flowing health</span>
<br/>
<span>Bathed him from head to foot and great goodwill</span>
<br/>
<span>Rose springing in his heart and poured its wealth</span>
<br/>
<span>Outwards. Then came a hand as if by stealth</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of the dark and touched his hand: and after</span>
<br/>
<span>The beating silence budded into laughter:</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—A low grave laugh and rounded like a pearl,</span>
<br/>
<span>Mysterious, filled with home. He opened wide</span>
<br/>
<span>His arms. The breathing body of a girl</span>
<br/>
<span>Slid into them. From the world’s end, with the stride</span>
<br/>
<span>Of seven-leagued boots came passion to his side.</span>
<br/>
<span>Then, meeting mouths, soft-falling hair, a cry,</span>
<br/>
<span>Heart-shaken flank, sudden cool-folded thigh:</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-2-stanza-33">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">33</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The same nights swelled the mushroom in earth’s lap</span>
<br/>
<span>And silvered the wet fields: it drew the bud</span>
<br/>
<span>From hiding and led on the rhythmic sap</span>
<br/>
<span>And sent the young wolves thirsting after blood,</span>
<br/>
<span>And, wheeling the big seas, made ebb and flood</span>
<br/>
<span>Along the shores of earth: and held these two</span>
<br/>
<span>In dead sleep till the time of morning dew.</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-3" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">III</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He woke, and all at once before his eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>The pale spires of the chestnut-trees in bloom</span>
<br/>
<span>Rose waving and, beyond, dove-coloured skies;</span>
<br/>
<span>But where he lay was dark and, out of gloom,</span>
<br/>
<span>He saw them, through the doorway of a room</span>
<br/>
<span>Full of strange scents and softness, padded deep</span>
<br/>
<span>With growing leaves, heavy with last night’s sleep.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He rubbed his eyes. He felt that chamber wreathing</span>
<br/>
<span>New sleepiness around him. At his side</span>
<br/>
<span>He was aware of warmth and quiet breathing.</span>
<br/>
<span>Twice he sank back, loose-limbed and drowsy-eyed;</span>
<br/>
<span>But the wind came even there. A sparrow cried</span>
<br/>
<span>And the wood shone without. Then Dymer rose,</span>
<br/>
<span>—“Just for one glance,” he said, and went, tip-toes,</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Out into crisp grey air and drenching grass.</span>
<br/>
<span>The whitened cobweb sparkling in its place</span>
<br/>
<span>Clung to his feet. He saw the wagtail pass</span>
<br/>
<span>Beside him and the thrush: and from his face</span>
<br/>
<span>Felt the thin-scented winds divinely chase</span>
<br/>
<span>The flush of sleep. Far off he saw, between</span>
<br/>
<span>The trees, long morning shadows of dark green.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He stretched his lazy arms to their full height,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yawning, and sighed and laughed, and sighed anew;</span>
<br/>
<span>Then wandered farther, watching with delight</span>
<br/>
<span>How his broad naked footprints stained the dew,</span>
<br/>
<span>—Pressing his foot to feel the cold come through</span>
<br/>
<span>Between the spreading toes⁠—then wheeled round</span>
<br/>
<span>Each moment to some new, shrill forest sound.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The wood with its cold flowers had nothing there</span>
<br/>
<span>More beautiful than he, new waked from sleep,</span>
<br/>
<span>New born from joy. His soul lay very bare</span>
<br/>
<span>That moment to life’s touch, and pondering deep</span>
<br/>
<span>Now first he knew that no desire could keep</span>
<br/>
<span>These hours for always, and that men do die</span>
<br/>
<span>—But oh, the present glory of lungs and eye!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He thought: “At home they are waking now. The stair</span>
<br/>
<span>Is filled with feet. The bells clang⁠—far from me.</span>
<br/>
<span>Where am I now? I could not point to where</span>
<br/>
<span>The City lies from here,”⁠ ⁠… then, suddenly,</span>
<br/>
<span>“If I were here alone, these woods could be</span>
<br/>
<span>A frightful place! But now I have met my friend</span>
<br/>
<span>Who loves me, we can talk to the road’s end.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Thus, quickening with the sweetness of the tale</span>
<br/>
<span>Of his new love, he turned. He saw, between</span>
<br/>
<span>The young leaves, where the palace walls showed pale</span>
<br/>
<span>With chilly stone: but far above the green,</span>
<br/>
<span>Springing like cliffs in air, the towers were seen,</span>
<br/>
<span>Making more quiet yet the quiet dawn.</span>
<br/>
<span>Thither he came. He reached the open lawn.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>No bird was moving here. Against the wall</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of the unscythed grass the nettle grew.</span>
<br/>
<span>The doors stood open wide, but no footfall</span>
<br/>
<span>Rang in the colonnades. Whispering through</span>
<br/>
<span>Arches and hollow halls the lights wind blew⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>His awe returned. He whistled⁠—then, no more,</span>
<br/>
<span>It’s better to plunge in by the first door.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But then the vastness threw him into doubt.</span>
<br/>
<span>Was this the door that he had found last night?</span>
<br/>
<span>Or that, beneath the tower? Had he come out</span>
<br/>
<span>This side at all? As the first snow falls light</span>
<br/>
<span>With following rain before the year grows white,</span>
<br/>
<span>So the first, dim foreboding touched his mind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Gently as yet, and easily thrust behind.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And with it came the thought, “I do not know</span>
<br/>
<span>Her name⁠—no, nor her face.” But still his mood</span>
<br/>
<span>Ran blithely as he felt the morning blow</span>
<br/>
<span>About him, and the earth-smell in the wood</span>
<br/>
<span>Seemed waking for long hours that must be good</span>
<br/>
<span>Here, in the unfettered lands, that knew no cause</span>
<br/>
<span>For grudging⁠—out of reach of the old laws.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He hastened to one entry. Up the stair,</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath the pillared porch, without delay,</span>
<br/>
<span>He ran⁠—then halted suddenly: for there</span>
<br/>
<span>Across the quiet threshold something lay,</span>
<br/>
<span>A bundle, a dark mass that barred the way.</span>
<br/>
<span>He looked again, and lo, the formless pile</span>
<br/>
<span>Under his eyes was moving all the while.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And it had hands, pale hands of wrinkled flesh,</span>
<br/>
<span>Puckered and gnarled with vast antiquity,</span>
<br/>
<span>That moved. He eyed the sprawling thing afresh,</span>
<br/>
<span>And bit by bit (so faces come to be</span>
<br/>
<span>In the red coal) yet surely, he could see</span>
<br/>
<span>That the swathed hugeness was uncleanly human,</span>
<br/>
<span>A living thing, the likeness of a woman.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>In the centre a draped hummock marked the head;</span>
<br/>
<span>Thence flowed the broader lines with curve and fold</span>
<br/>
<span>Spreading as oak roots do. You would have said</span>
<br/>
<span>A man could hid among them and grow old</span>
<br/>
<span>In finding a way out. Breast manifold</span>
<br/>
<span>As of the Ephesian Artemis might be</span>
<br/>
<span>Under that robe. The face he did not see.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And all his being answered, “Not that way!”</span>
<br/>
<span>Never a word he spoke. Stealthily creeping</span>
<br/>
<span>Back from the door he drew. Quick! No delay!</span>
<br/>
<span>Quick, quick, but very quiet!⁠—backward peeping</span>
<br/>
<span>Till fairly out of sight. Then shouting, leaping,</span>
<br/>
<span>Shaking himself, he ran⁠—as puppies do</span>
<br/>
<span>From bathing⁠—till that door was out of view.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Another gate⁠—and empty. In he went</span>
<br/>
<span>And found a courtyard open to the sky,</span>
<br/>
<span>Amidst it dripped a fountain. Heavy scent</span>
<br/>
<span>Of flowers was here; the foxglove standing high</span>
<br/>
<span>Sheltered the whining wasp. With hasty eye</span>
<br/>
<span>He travelled round the walls. One doorway led</span>
<br/>
<span>Within: one showed a further court ahead.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He ran up to the first⁠—a hungry lover,</span>
<br/>
<span>And not yet taught to endure, not blunted yet,</span>
<br/>
<span>But weary of long waiting to discover</span>
<br/>
<span>That loved one’s face. Before his foot was set</span>
<br/>
<span>On the first stair, he felt the sudden sweat</span>
<br/>
<span>Cold on his sides. That sprawling mass in view,</span>
<br/>
<span>That shape⁠—the horror of heaviness⁠—here too.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He fell back from the porch. Not yet⁠—not yet⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>There must be other ways where he would meet</span>
<br/>
<span>No watcher in the door. He would not let</span>
<br/>
<span>The fear rise, nor hope falter, nor defeat</span>
<br/>
<span>Be entered in his thoughts. A sultry heat</span>
<br/>
<span>Seemed to have filled the day. His breath came short,</span>
<br/>
<span>And he passed on into that inner court.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And (like a dream) the sight he feared to find</span>
<br/>
<span>Was waiting here. Then cloister, path and square</span>
<br/>
<span>He hastened through: down paths that ended blind,</span>
<br/>
<span>Traced and retraced his steps. The thing sat there</span>
<br/>
<span>In every door, still watching, everywhere,</span>
<br/>
<span>Behind, ahead, all around⁠—So! Steady now,</span>
<br/>
<span>Lest panic comes. He stopped. He wiped his brow.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But, as he strove to rally, came the thought</span>
<br/>
<span>That he had dreamed of such a place before</span>
<br/>
<span>—Knew how it all would end. He must be caught</span>
<br/>
<span>Early or late. No good! But all the more</span>
<br/>
<span>He raged with passionate will that overbore</span>
<br/>
<span>That knowledge: and cried out, and beat his head,</span>
<br/>
<span>Raving, upon the senseless walls, and said:</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Where? Where? Dear, look once out. Give but one sign.</span>
<br/>
<span>It’s I, I, Dymer. Are you chained and hidden?</span>
<br/>
<span>What have they done to her? Loose her! She is mine.</span>
<br/>
<span>Through stone and iron, haunted and hag-ridden,</span>
<br/>
<span>I’ll come to you⁠—no stranger, nor unbidden,</span>
<br/>
<span>It’s I. Don’t fear them. Shout above them all.</span>
<br/>
<span>Can you not hear? I’ll follow at your call.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>From every arch the echo of his cry</span>
<br/>
<span>Returned. Then all was silent, and he knew</span>
<br/>
<span>There was no other way. He must pass by</span>
<br/>
<span>That horror: tread her down, force his way through,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or die upon the threshold. And this too</span>
<br/>
<span>Had all been in a dream. He felt his heart</span>
<br/>
<span>Beating as if his throat would burst apart.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>There was no other way. He stood a space</span>
<br/>
<span>And pondered it. Then, gathering up his will,</span>
<br/>
<span>He went to the next door. The pillared place</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath the porch was dark. The air was still,</span>
<br/>
<span>Moss on the steps. He felt her presence fill</span>
<br/>
<span>The threshold with dull life. Here too was she.</span>
<br/>
<span>This time he raised his eyes and dared to see.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Pah! Only an old woman!⁠ ⁠… but the size,</span>
<br/>
<span>The old, old matriarchal dreadfulness,</span>
<br/>
<span>Immovable, intolerable⁠ ⁠… the eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>Hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress,</span>
<br/>
<span>Corpselike⁠ ⁠… The weight of the brute that seemed to press</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon his heart and breathing. Then he heard</span>
<br/>
<span>His own voice, strange and humble, take the word.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Good Mother, let me pass. I have a friend</span>
<br/>
<span>To look for in this house. I slept the night</span>
<br/>
<span>And feasted here⁠—it was my journey’s end,</span>
<br/>
<span>—I found it by the music and the light,</span>
<br/>
<span>And no one kept the doors, and I did right</span>
<br/>
<span>To enter⁠—did I not? Now, Mother, pray,</span>
<br/>
<span>Let me pass in⁠ ⁠… good Mother, give me way.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The woman answered nothing: but he saw</span>
<br/>
<span>The hands, like crabs, still wandering on her knee.</span>
<br/>
<span>“Mother, if I have broken any law,</span>
<br/>
<span>I’ll ask a pardon once: then let it be,</span>
<br/>
<span>—Once is enough⁠—and leave the passage free.</span>
<br/>
<span>I am in haste. And though it were a sin</span>
<br/>
<span>By all the laws you have, I must go in.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Courage was rising in him now. He said,</span>
<br/>
<span>“Out of my path, old woman. For this cause</span>
<br/>
<span>I am new born, new freed, and here new wed,</span>
<br/>
<span>That I might be the breaker of bad laws.</span>
<br/>
<span>The frost of old forbiddings breaks and thaws</span>
<br/>
<span>Wherever my feet fall. I bring to birth</span>
<br/>
<span>Under its crust the green, ungrudging earth.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He had started, bowing low: but now he stood</span>
<br/>
<span>Stretched to his height. His own voice in his breast</span>
<br/>
<span>Made misery pompous, firing all his blood.</span>
<br/>
<span>“Enough,” he cried. “Give place. You shall not wrest</span>
<br/>
<span>My love from me. I journey on quest</span>
<br/>
<span>You cannot understand, whose strength shall bear me</span>
<br/>
<span>Through fire and earth. A body will not scare me.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“I am the sword of spring; I am the truth.</span>
<br/>
<span>Old night, put out your stars, the dawn is here,</span>
<br/>
<span>The sleeper’s wakening, and the wings of youth.</span>
<br/>
<span>With crumbling veneration and cowed fear</span>
<br/>
<span>I make no truce. My loved one, live and dear,</span>
<br/>
<span>Waits for me. Let me in! I fled the City,</span>
<br/>
<span>Shall I fear you or⁠ ⁠… Mother, ah, for pity.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>For his high mood fell shattered. Like a man</span>
<br/>
<span>Unnerved, in bayonet-fighting, in the thick,</span>
<br/>
<span>—Full of red rum and cheers when he began,</span>
<br/>
<span>Now, in a dream, muttering: “I’ve not the trick.</span>
<br/>
<span>It’s no good. I’m no good. They’re all too quick.</span>
<br/>
<span>There! Look there! Look at that!”⁠—so Dymer stood,</span>
<br/>
<span>Suddenly drained of hope. It was no good.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He pleaded then. Shame beneath Shame. “Forgive.</span>
<br/>
<span>It may be there are powers I cannot break.</span>
<br/>
<span>If you are of them, speak. Speak. Let me live.</span>
<br/>
<span>I ask so small a thing. I beg. I make</span>
<br/>
<span>My body a living prayer whose force would shake</span>
<br/>
<span>The mountains. I’ll recant⁠—confess my sin⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>But this once let me pass. I must go in.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Yield but one inch, once only from your law;</span>
<br/>
<span>Set any price⁠—I will give all, obey</span>
<br/>
<span>All else but this, hold your least word in awe,</span>
<br/>
<span>Give you no cause for anger from this day.</span>
<br/>
<span>Answer! The least things living when they pray</span>
<br/>
<span>As I pray now bear witness. They speak true</span>
<br/>
<span>Against God. Answer! Mother, let me through.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then when he heard no answer, mad with fear</span>
<br/>
<span>And with desire, too strained with both to know</span>
<br/>
<span>What he desired or feared, yet staggering near,</span>
<br/>
<span>He forced himself towards her and bent low</span>
<br/>
<span>For grappling. Then came darkness. Then a blow</span>
<br/>
<span>Fell on his heart, he thought. There came a blank</span>
<br/>
<span>Of all things. As the dead sink, down he sank.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-3-stanza-33">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">33</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The first big drops are rattling on the trees,</span>
<br/>
<span>The sky is copper dark, low thunder pealing.</span>
<br/>
<span>See Dymer with drooped head and knocking knees</span>
<br/>
<span>Comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly reeling,</span>
<br/>
<span>Blind, beaten, broken, past desire of healing,</span>
<br/>
<span>Past knowledge of his misery, he goes on</span>
<br/>
<span>Under the first dark trees and now is gone.</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-4" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">IV</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>First came the peal that split the heavens apart</span>
<br/>
<span>Straight overhead. Then silence. Then the rain;</span>
<br/>
<span>Twelve miles of downward water like one dart,</span>
<br/>
<span>And in one leap were launched along the plain,</span>
<br/>
<span>To break the budding flower and flood the grain,</span>
<br/>
<span>And keep with dripping sound an undersong</span>
<br/>
<span>Amid the wheeling thunder all might long.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He put his hands before his face. He stooped,</span>
<br/>
<span>Blind with his hair. The loud drops’ grim tattoo</span>
<br/>
<span>Beat him to earth. Like summer grass he drooped,</span>
<br/>
<span>Amazed, while sheeted lightning large and blue</span>
<br/>
<span>Blinked wide and pricked and quivering eyeball through.</span>
<br/>
<span>Then, scrambling to his feet, with downward head</span>
<br/>
<span>He fought into the tempest as chance led.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The wood was mad. Soughing of branch and straining</span>
<br/>
<span>Was there: drumming of water. Light was none,</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor knowledge of himself. The trees’ complaining</span>
<br/>
<span>And his own throbbing heart seemed mixed in one,</span>
<br/>
<span>One sense of bitter loss and beauty undone;</span>
<br/>
<span>All else was blur and chaos and rain-stream</span>
<br/>
<span>And noise and the confusion of a dream.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Aha!⁠ ⁠… Earth hates a miserable man:</span>
<br/>
<span>Against him even the clouds and winds conspire.</span>
<br/>
<span>Heaven’s voice smote Dymer’s ear-drum as he ran,</span>
<br/>
<span>Its red throat plagued the dark with corded fire</span>
<br/>
<span>—Barbed flame, coiled flame that ran like living wire</span>
<br/>
<span>Charged with disastrous current, left and right</span>
<br/>
<span>About his path, hell-blue or staring white.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Stab! Stab! Blast all at once. What’s he to fear?</span>
<br/>
<span>Look there⁠—that cedar shrivelling in swift blight</span>
<br/>
<span>Even where he stood! And there⁠—ah, that came near!</span>
<br/>
<span>Oh, if some shaft would break his soul outright,</span>
<br/>
<span>What ease so to unload and scatter quite</span>
<br/>
<span>On the darkness this wild beating in his skull</span>
<br/>
<span>Too burning to endure, too tense and full.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>All lost: and driven away: even her name</span>
<br/>
<span>Unknown. O fool, to have wasted for a kiss</span>
<br/>
<span>Time when they could have talked! An angry shame</span>
<br/>
<span>Was in him. He had worshipt earth, and this</span>
<br/>
<span>—The venomed clouds fire spitting from the abyss,</span>
<br/>
<span>This was the truth indeed, the world’s intent</span>
<br/>
<span>Unmasked and naked now, the thing it meant.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The storm lay on the forest a great time</span>
<br/>
<span>—Wheeled in its thundery circuit, turned, returned.</span>
<br/>
<span>Still through the dead-leaved darkness, through the slime</span>
<br/>
<span>Of standing pools and slots of clay storm-churned</span>
<br/>
<span>Went Dymer. Still the knotty lightning burned</span>
<br/>
<span>Along black air. He heard the unbroken sound</span>
<br/>
<span>Of water rising in the hollower ground.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He cursed it in his madness, flung it back,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sorrow as wild as young men’s sorrows are,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till, after midnight, when the tempest’s track</span>
<br/>
<span>Drew off, between two clouds appeared one star.</span>
<br/>
<span>Then his mood changed. And this was heavier far,</span>
<br/>
<span>When bit by bit, rarer and still more rare,</span>
<br/>
<span>The weakening thunder ceased from the cleansed air;</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>When the leaves began to drip with dying rain</span>
<br/>
<span>And trees showed black against the glimmering sky,</span>
<br/>
<span>When the night-birds flapped out and called again</span>
<br/>
<span>Above him: when the silence cool and shy</span>
<br/>
<span>Came stealing to its own, and streams ran by</span>
<br/>
<span>Now audible amid the rustling wood</span>
<br/>
<span>—Oh, then came the worst hour for flesh and blood.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>It was no nightmare now with fiery stream</span>
<br/>
<span>Too horrible to last, able to blend</span>
<br/>
<span>Itself and all things in one hurrying dream;</span>
<br/>
<span>It was the waking world that will not end</span>
<br/>
<span>Because hearts break, that is not foe nor friend,</span>
<br/>
<span>Where sane and settled knowledge first appears</span>
<br/>
<span>Of work-day desolation, with no tears.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He halted then, foot-sore, weary to death,</span>
<br/>
<span>And heard his heart beating in solitude,</span>
<br/>
<span>When suddenly the sound of sharpest breath</span>
<br/>
<span>Indrawn with pain and the raw smell of blood</span>
<br/>
<span>Surprised his sense. Near by to where he stood</span>
<br/>
<span>Came a long whimpering moan⁠—a broken word,</span>
<br/>
<span>A rustle of leaves where some live body stirred.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapater-4-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He groped towards the sound. “What, brother, brother,</span>
<br/>
<span>Who groaned?”⁠—“I’m hit. I’m finished. Let me be.”</span>
<br/>
<span>—“Put out your hand, then. Reach me. No, the other.”</span>
<br/>
<span>—“Don’t touch. Fool! Damn you! Leave me.”⁠—“I can’t see.</span>
<br/>
<span>Where are you?” Then more groans. “They’ve done for me.</span>
<br/>
<span>I’ve no hands, Don’t come near me. No, but stay,</span>
<br/>
<span>Don’t leave me⁠ ⁠… O my God! Is it near day?”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“Soon now, a little longer. Can you sleep?</span>
<br/>
<span>I’ll watch for you.”⁠—“Sleep, is it? That’s ahead,</span>
<br/>
<span>But none till then. Listen: I’ve bled too deep</span>
<br/>
<span>To last out till the morning. I’ll be dead</span>
<br/>
<span>Within the hour⁠—sleep then. I’ve heard it said</span>
<br/>
<span>They don’t mind at the last, but this is Hell.</span>
<br/>
<span>If I’d the strength⁠—I have such things to tell.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>All trembling in the dark and sweated over</span>
<br/>
<span>Like a man reared in peace, unused to pain,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sat Dymer near him in the lightless cover,</span>
<br/>
<span>Afraid to touch and shamefaced to refrain.</span>
<br/>
<span>Then bit by bit and often checked again</span>
<br/>
<span>With agony the voice told on. (The place</span>
<br/>
<span>Was dark, that neither saw the other’s face.)</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“There is a City which men call in scorn</span>
<br/>
<span>The Perfect City⁠—eastward of this wood⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>You’ve heard about the place. There I was born.</span>
<br/>
<span>I’m one of them, their work. Their sober mood,</span>
<br/>
<span>The ordered life, the laws, are in my blood</span>
<br/>
<span>—A life⁠ ⁠… well, less than happy, something more</span>
<br/>
<span>Than the red greed and lusts that went before.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“All in one day, one man an at one blow</span>
<br/>
<span>Brought ruin on us all. There was a boy</span>
<br/>
<span>—Blue eyes, large limbs, were all he had to show,</span>
<br/>
<span>You need no greater prophets to destroy.</span>
<br/>
<span>He seemed a man asleep. Sorrow and joy</span>
<br/>
<span>Had passed him by⁠—the dreamiest, safest man,</span>
<br/>
<span>The most obscure, until this curse began.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Then⁠—how or why it was, I cannot say⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>This Dymer, this fool baby pink-and-white,</span>
<br/>
<span>Went mad beneath his quiet face. One day,</span>
<br/>
<span>With nothing said, he rose and laughed outright</span>
<br/>
<span>Before his master: then, in all our sight,</span>
<br/>
<span>Even where we sat to watch, he struck him dead</span>
<br/>
<span>And screamed with laughter once again and fled.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Lord! how it all comes back. How still the place is,</span>
<br/>
<span>And he there lying dead⁠ ⁠… only the sound</span>
<br/>
<span>Of a bluebottle buzzing⁠ ⁠… sharpened faces</span>
<br/>
<span>Strained, gaping from the benches all around⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>The dead man hunched and quiet with no wound,</span>
<br/>
<span>And minute after minute terror creeping</span>
<br/>
<span>With dreadful hopes to set the wild heart leaping.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Then one by one at random (no word spoken)</span>
<br/>
<span>We slipt out to the sunlight and away.</span>
<br/>
<span>We felt the empty sense of something broken</span>
<br/>
<span>And comfortless adventure all that day.</span>
<br/>
<span>Men loitered at their work and could not say</span>
<br/>
<span>What trembled at their lips or what new light</span>
<br/>
<span>Was in girls’ eyes. Yet we endured till night.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Then⁠ ⁠… I was lying awake in bed,</span>
<br/>
<span>Shot through with tremulous thought, lame hopes, and sweet</span>
<br/>
<span>Desire of reckless days⁠—with burning head.</span>
<br/>
<span>And then there came a clamour from the street,</span>
<br/>
<span>Came nearer, nearer, nearer⁠—stamping feet</span>
<br/>
<span>And screaming song and curses and a shout</span>
<br/>
<span>Of ‘Who’s for Dymer, Dymer?⁠—Up and out!’</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“We looked out from our window. Thronging there</span>
<br/>
<span>A thousand of our people, girls and men,</span>
<br/>
<span>Raved and reviled and shouted by the glare</span>
<br/>
<span>Of torches and bonfire blaze. And then</span>
<br/>
<span>Came tumult from the street beyond: again</span>
<br/>
<span>‘Dymer!’ they cried. And farther off there came</span>
<br/>
<span>The sound of gun-fire and the gleam of flame.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“I rushed down with the rest. Oh, we were mad!</span>
<br/>
<span>After this, it’s all nightmare. The black sky</span>
<br/>
<span>Between the housetops framed was all we had</span>
<br/>
<span>To tell us that the old world could not die</span>
<br/>
<span>And that we were no gods. The flood ran high</span>
<br/>
<span>When first I came, but after was the worse,</span>
<br/>
<span>Oh, to recall⁠ ⁠… ! On Dymer rest the curse!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Our leader was a hunchback with red hair</span>
<br/>
<span>—Bran was his name. He had that kind of force</span>
<br/>
<span>About him that will hold your eyes fast there</span>
<br/>
<span>As in ten miles of green one patch of gorse</span>
<br/>
<span>Will hold them⁠—do you know? His lips were coarse,</span>
<br/>
<span>But his eyes like a prophet’s⁠—seemed to fill</span>
<br/>
<span>The whole face. And his tongue was never still.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“He cried: ‘As Dymer broke, we’ll break the chain.</span>
<br/>
<span>The world is free. They taught you to be chaste</span>
<br/>
<span>And labour and bear orders and refrain.</span>
<br/>
<span>Refrain? From what? All’s good enough. We’ll taste</span>
<br/>
<span>Whatever is. Life murmurs from the waste</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath the mind⁠ ⁠… who made the reasoning part</span>
<br/>
<span>The jailer of the wild gods in the heart?’</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“We were a ragtail crew⁠—wild-haired, half-dressed,</span>
<br/>
<span>All shouting, ‘Up, for Dymer! Up away!’</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet each one always watching all the rest</span>
<br/>
<span>And looking to his back. And some were gay</span>
<br/>
<span>Like drunk man, some were cringing, pinched and grey</span>
<br/>
<span>With terror dry on the lip. (The older ones</span>
<br/>
<span>Had had the sense enough to bring their guns.)</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“The wave where I was swallowed swelled and broke,</span>
<br/>
<span>After long surge, into the open square.</span>
<br/>
<span>And here there was more light: new clamour woke.</span>
<br/>
<span>Here first I heard the bullets sting the air</span>
<br/>
<span>And went hot round the heart. Our lords were there</span>
<br/>
<span>In barricade with all their loyal men.</span>
<br/>
<span>For every one man loyal Bran led ten.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Then charge and cheer and bubbling sobs of death,</span>
<br/>
<span>We hovered on their front. Like swarming bees</span>
<br/>
<span>Their spraying bullets came⁠—no time for breath.</span>
<br/>
<span>I saw men’s stomachs fall out on their knees;</span>
<br/>
<span>And shouting faces, while they shouted, freeze</span>
<br/>
<span>Into black, bony masks. Before we knew</span>
<br/>
<span>We’re into them⁠ ⁠… ‘Swine!’⁠—‘Die, then’⁠—‘That’s for you.’</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“The next that I remember was a lull</span>
<br/>
<span>And sated pause. I saw an old, old man</span>
<br/>
<span>Lying before my feet with shattered skull,</span>
<br/>
<span>And both my arms dripped red. And then came Bran</span>
<br/>
<span>And at his heels a hundred murderers ran,</span>
<br/>
<span>With prisoners now, clamouring to take and try them</span>
<br/>
<span>And burn them, wedge their nails up, crucify them.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“God!⁠ ⁠… Once the lying spirit of a cause</span>
<br/>
<span>With maddening words dethrones the mind of men,</span>
<br/>
<span>They’re past the reach of prayer. The eternal laws</span>
<br/>
<span>Hate them. Their eyes will not come clean again,</span>
<br/>
<span>But doom and strong delusion drive them then,</span>
<br/>
<span>Without ruth, without rest⁠ ⁠… the iron laughter</span>
<br/>
<span>Of the immortal mouths goes hooting after.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“And we had firebrands too. Tower after tower</span>
<br/>
<span>Fell sheathed in thundering flame. The street was like</span>
<br/>
<span>A furnace mouth. We had them in our power!</span>
<br/>
<span>Then was the time to mock them and to strike,</span>
<br/>
<span>To flay men and spit women on the pike,</span>
<br/>
<span>Bidding them dance. Wherever the most shame</span>
<br/>
<span>Was done the doer called on Dymer’s name.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Faces of men in torture⁠ ⁠… from my mind</span>
<br/>
<span>They will not go away. The East lay still</span>
<br/>
<span>In darkness when we left the town behind</span>
<br/>
<span>Flaming to light the fields. We’d had our will:</span>
<br/>
<span>We sang, ‘Oh, we will make the frost distil</span>
<br/>
<span>From Time’s grey forehead into living dew</span>
<br/>
<span>And break whatever has been and build new.’</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Day found us on the border of this wood,</span>
<br/>
<span>Blear-eyed and pale. Then the most part began</span>
<br/>
<span>To murmur and to lag, crying for food</span>
<br/>
<span>And shelter. But we dared not answer Bran.</span>
<br/>
<span>Wherever in the ranks the murmur ran</span>
<br/>
<span>He’d find it⁠—‘You, there, whispering. Up, you sneak,</span>
<br/>
<span>Reactionary, eh? Come out and speak.’</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-33">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">33</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Then there’d be shrieks, a pistol shot, a cry,</span>
<br/>
<span>And someone down. I was the third he caught.</span>
<br/>
<span>The others pushed me out beneath his eye,</span>
<br/>
<span>Saying, ‘He’s here; here, Capture.’ Who’d have thought⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>My old friends? But I know now. I’ve been taught⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>They cut away my two hands and my feet</span>
<br/>
<span>And laughed and left me for the birds to eat.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-34">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">34</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Oh, God’s name! If I had my hands again</span>
<br/>
<span>And Dymer here⁠ ⁠… it would not be my blood.</span>
<br/>
<span>I am stronger now than he is, old with pain,</span>
<br/>
<span>One grip would make him mine. But it’s no good,</span>
<br/>
<span>I’m dying fast. Look stranger, where the wood</span>
<br/>
<span>Grows lighter. It’s the morning. Stranger dear,</span>
<br/>
<span>Don’t leave me. Talk a little while. Come near.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-4-stanza-35">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">35</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But Dymer, sitting hunched with knee to chin,</span>
<br/>
<span>Close to the dying man, answered no word.</span>
<br/>
<span>His face was stone. There was no meaning in</span>
<br/>
<span>His wakeful eyes. Sometimes the other stirred</span>
<br/>
<span>And fretted, near his death; and Dymer heard,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet sat like one that neither hears nor sees.</span>
<br/>
<span>And the cold East whitened beyond the trees.</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-5" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">V</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Through bearded cliffs a valley has driven thus deep</span>
<br/>
<span>Its wedge into the mountain and no more.</span>
<br/>
<span>The faint track of farthest-wandering sheep</span>
<br/>
<span>Ends here, and the grey hollows at their core</span>
<br/>
<span>Of silence feel the dulled continuous roar</span>
<br/>
<span>Of higher streams. At every step the skies</span>
<br/>
<span>Grow less and in their place black ridges rise.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Hither, long after noon, with plodding tread</span>
<br/>
<span>And eyes on earth, grown dogged, Dymer came,</span>
<br/>
<span>Who all the long day in the woods had fled</span>
<br/>
<span>From the horror of those lips that screamed his name</span>
<br/>
<span>And cursed him. Busy wonder and keen shame</span>
<br/>
<span>Were driving him, and little thoughts like bees</span>
<br/>
<span>Followed and pricked him on and left no ease.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Now, when he looked and saw this emptiness</span>
<br/>
<span>Seven times enfolded in the idle hills,</span>
<br/>
<span>There came a chilly pause to his distress,</span>
<br/>
<span>A cloud of the deep world-despair that fills</span>
<br/>
<span>A man’s heart like the incoming tide and kills</span>
<br/>
<span>All pains except its own. In that broad sea</span>
<br/>
<span>No hope, no change, and no regret can be.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He felt the eternal strength of the silly earth,</span>
<br/>
<span>The unhastening circuit of the stars and sea,</span>
<br/>
<span>The business of perpetual death and birth,</span>
<br/>
<span>The meaningless precision. All must be</span>
<br/>
<span>The same and still the same in each degree⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Who cared now? And the smiled and could forgive,</span>
<br/>
<span>Believing that for sure he would not live.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then, where he saw a little water run</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath a bush, he slept. The chills of May</span>
<br/>
<span>Came dropping and the stars peered one by one</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of the deepening blue, while far away</span>
<br/>
<span>The western brightness dulled to bars of grey.</span>
<br/>
<span>Half-way to midnight, suddenly, from dreaming</span>
<br/>
<span>He woke wide into present horror, screaming.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>For he had dreamt of being in the arms</span>
<br/>
<span>Of his beloved and in quiet places;</span>
<br/>
<span>But all at once it filled with night alarms</span>
<br/>
<span>And rapping guns: and men with splintered faces,</span>
<br/>
<span>—No eyes, no nose, all red⁠—were running races</span>
<br/>
<span>With worms along the floor. And he ran out</span>
<br/>
<span>To find the girl and shouted: and that shout</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Had carried him into the waking world.</span>
<br/>
<span>There stood the concave, vast, unfriendly night,</span>
<br/>
<span>And over him the scroll of stars unfurled.</span>
<br/>
<span>Then wailing like a child he rose upright,</span>
<br/>
<span>Heart-sick with desolation. The new blight</span>
<br/>
<span>Of loss had nipt him sore, and sad self-pity</span>
<br/>
<span>Thinking of her⁠—then thinking of the City.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>For, in each moment’s thought, the deed of Bran,</span>
<br/>
<span>The burning and the blood and his own shame,</span>
<br/>
<span>Would tease him into madness till he ran</span>
<br/>
<span>For refuge to the thought of her; whence came</span>
<br/>
<span>Utter and endless loss⁠—no, not a name,</span>
<br/>
<span>Not a word, nothing left⁠—himself alone</span>
<br/>
<span>Crying amid that valley of old stone:</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“How soon it all ran out! And I suppose</span>
<br/>
<span>They, they up there, the old contriving powers,</span>
<br/>
<span>They knew it all the time⁠—for someone knows</span>
<br/>
<span>And waits and watches till we pluck the flowers,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then leaps. So soon⁠—my store of happy hours</span>
<br/>
<span>All gone before I knew. I have expended</span>
<br/>
<span>My whole wealth in a day. It’s finished, ended.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“And nothing left. Can it be possible</span>
<br/>
<span>That joy flows through and, when the course is run,</span>
<br/>
<span>It leaves no change, no mark on us to tell</span>
<br/>
<span>Its passing? And as poor as we’ve begun</span>
<br/>
<span>We end the richest day? What we have won,</span>
<br/>
<span>Can it all die like this?⁠ ⁠… Joy flickers on</span>
<br/>
<span>The razor-edge of the present and is gone.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“What have I done to bear upon my name</span>
<br/>
<span>The curse of Bran? I was not of his crew,</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor any man’s. And Dymer has the blame⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>What have I done? Wronged whom? I never knew.</span>
<br/>
<span>What’s Bran to me? I had my deed to do</span>
<br/>
<span>And ran out by myself, alone and free,</span>
<br/>
<span>—Why should earth sing with joy and not for me?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Ah, but the earth never did sing for joy⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>There is a glamour on the leaf and flower</span>
<br/>
<span>And April comes and whistles to a boy</span>
<br/>
<span>Over white fields: and, beauty has such power</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon us, he believes her in that hour,</span>
<br/>
<span>For who could not believe? Can it be false,</span>
<br/>
<span>All that the blackbird says and the wind calls?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“What have I done? No living thing I made</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor wished to suffer harm. I sought my good</span>
<br/>
<span>Because the spring was gloriously arrayed</span>
<br/>
<span>And the blue eyebright misted all the wood.</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet to obey that springtime and my blood,</span>
<br/>
<span>This was to be unarmed and off my guard</span>
<br/>
<span>And gave God time to hit once and hit hard.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“The men built right who made that City of ours,</span>
<br/>
<span>They knew their world. A man must crouch to face</span>
<br/>
<span>Infinite malice, watching at all hours,</span>
<br/>
<span>Shut Nature out⁠—give her no moment’s space</span>
<br/>
<span>For entry. The first needs of all our race</span>
<br/>
<span>Are walls, a den, a cover. Traitor I</span>
<br/>
<span>Who first ran out beneath the open sky.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Our fortress and fenced place I made to fail,</span>
<br/>
<span>I slipt the sentries and let in the foe.</span>
<br/>
<span>I have lost my brothers and my love and all.</span>
<br/>
<span>Nothing is left but me. Now let me go.</span>
<br/>
<span>I have seen the world stripped naked and I know.</span>
<br/>
<span>Great God, take back your world. I will have none</span>
<br/>
<span>Of all your glittering gauds but death alone.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Meanwhile the earth swung round in hollow night.</span>
<br/>
<span>Souls without number in all nations slept</span>
<br/>
<span>Snug on her back, safe speeding towards the light;</span>
<br/>
<span>Hours tolled, and in damp woods the night beast crept,</span>
<br/>
<span>And over the long seas the watch was kept</span>
<br/>
<span>In black ships, twinkling onward, green and red:</span>
<br/>
<span>Always the ordered stars moved overhead.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And no one knew that Dymer in his scales</span>
<br/>
<span>Had weighed all these and found them nothing worth.</span>
<br/>
<span>Indifferently the dawn that never fails</span>
<br/>
<span>Troubled the east of night with gradual birth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Whispering a change of colours on cold earth,</span>
<br/>
<span>And a bird woke, then two. The sunlight ran</span>
<br/>
<span>Along the hills and yellow day began.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But stagnant gloom clung in the valley yet;</span>
<br/>
<span>Hills crowded out a third part of the sky,</span>
<br/>
<span>Black-looking, and the boulders dripped with wet:</span>
<br/>
<span>No bird sang. Dymer, shivering, heaved a sigh</span>
<br/>
<span>And yawned and said: “It’s cruel work to die</span>
<br/>
<span>Of hunger”; and again, with cloudy breath</span>
<br/>
<span>Blown between chattering teeth, “It’s a bad death.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He crouched and clasped his hands about his knees</span>
<br/>
<span>And hugged his own limbs for the pitiful sense</span>
<br/>
<span>Of homeliness they had⁠—familiars these,</span>
<br/>
<span>This body, at least, his own, his last defence</span>
<br/>
<span>But soon his morning misery drove him thence,</span>
<br/>
<span>Eating his heart, to wander as chance led</span>
<br/>
<span>On, upward, to the narrowing gully’s head.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The cloud lay on the nearest mountaintop</span>
<br/>
<span>As from a giant’s chimney smoking there,</span>
<br/>
<span>But Dymer took no heed. Sometimes he’d stop,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sometimes he hurried faster, as despair</span>
<br/>
<span>Pricked deeper, and cried out: “Even now, somewhere,</span>
<br/>
<span>Bran with his crew’s at work. They rack, they burn,</span>
<br/>
<span>And there’s no help in me. I’ve served their turn.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Meanwhile the furrowed fog rolled down ahead,</span>
<br/>
<span>Long tatters of its vanguard smearing round</span>
<br/>
<span>The bases of the crags. Like cobweb shed</span>
<br/>
<span>Down the deep combes it dulled the tinkling sound</span>
<br/>
<span>Of waters on the hills. The spongy ground</span>
<br/>
<span>Faded three yards ahead: then nearer yet</span>
<br/>
<span>Fell the cold wreaths, the white depth gleaming wet.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then after a long time the path he trod</span>
<br/>
<span>Led downward. Then all suddenly it dipped</span>
<br/>
<span>Far steeper, and yet steeper, with smooth sod.</span>
<br/>
<span>He was half running now. A stone that slipped</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath him, rattled headlong down: he tripped,</span>
<br/>
<span>Stumbled and clutched⁠—then panic, and no hope</span>
<br/>
<span>To stop himself, once lost upon that slope.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And faster, ever faster, and his eye</span>
<br/>
<span>Caught tree-tops far below. The nightmare feeling</span>
<br/>
<span>Had gripped him. He was screaming: and the sky</span>
<br/>
<span>Seemed hanging upside down. Then struggling, reeling,</span>
<br/>
<span>With effort beyond thought he hung half kneeling,</span>
<br/>
<span>Halted one saving moment. With wild will</span>
<br/>
<span>He clawed into the hillside and lay still,</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chaper-5-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Half hanging on both arms. His idle feet</span>
<br/>
<span>Dangled and found no hold. The moor lay wet</span>
<br/>
<span>Against him and he sweated with the heat</span>
<br/>
<span>Of terror, all alive. His teeth were set.</span>
<br/>
<span>“By God, I will not die,” said he; “not yet.”</span>
<br/>
<span>Then slowly, slowly, with enormous strain,</span>
<br/>
<span>He heaved himself an inch: then heaved again,</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stamza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Till saved and spent he lay. He felt indeed</span>
<br/>
<span>It was the big, round world beneath his breast,</span>
<br/>
<span>The mother planet proven at this need.</span>
<br/>
<span>The shame of glad surrender stood confessed,</span>
<br/>
<span>He cared not for his boasts. This, this was best,</span>
<br/>
<span>This giving up of all. He need not strive;</span>
<br/>
<span>He panted, he lay still, he was alive.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And now his eyes were closed. Perhaps he slept,</span>
<br/>
<span>Lapt in unearthly quiet⁠—never knew</span>
<br/>
<span>How bit by bit the fog’s white rearguard crept</span>
<br/>
<span>Over the crest and faded, and the blue</span>
<br/>
<span>First brightening at the zenith trembled through,</span>
<br/>
<span>And deepening shadows took a sharper form</span>
<br/>
<span>Each moment, and the sandy earth grew warm.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Yet, dreaming of blue skies, in dream he heard</span>
<br/>
<span>The pure voice of lark that seemed to send</span>
<br/>
<span>Its song from heights beyond all height. That bird</span>
<br/>
<span>Sang out heaven, “The world will never end,”</span>
<br/>
<span>Sang from the gates of heavens, “Will never end.”</span>
<br/>
<span>Sang till it seemed there was no other thing</span>
<br/>
<span>But bright space and one voice set there to sing.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>It seemed to be the murmur and the voice</span>
<br/>
<span>Or beings beyond number, each and all</span>
<br/>
<span>Singing <strong>I am</strong>. Each of itself made choice</span>
<br/>
<span>And was: whence flows the justice that men call</span>
<br/>
<span>Divine. She keeps the great worlds lest they fall</span>
<br/>
<span>From hour to hour, and makes the hills renew</span>
<br/>
<span>Their ancient youth and sweetens all things through.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>It seemed to be the low voice of the world</span>
<br/>
<span>Brooding alone beneath the strength of things,</span>
<br/>
<span>Murmuring of days and nights and years unfurled</span>
<br/>
<span>Forever, and the unwearied joy that brings</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of old fields the flowers of unborn springs,</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of old wars and cities burned with wrong,</span>
<br/>
<span>A splendour in the dark, a tale, a song.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The dream ran thin towards waking, and he knew</span>
<br/>
<span>It was but a bird’s piping with no sense.</span>
<br/>
<span>He rolled round on his back. The sudden blue,</span>
<br/>
<span>Quivering with light, heard, cloudless and intense,</span>
<br/>
<span>Shone over him. The lark still sounded thence</span>
<br/>
<span>And stirred him at the heart. Some spacious thought</span>
<br/>
<span>Was passing by too gently to be caught.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>With that he thrust the damp hair from his face</span>
<br/>
<span>And sat upright. The perilous cliff dropped sheer</span>
<br/>
<span>Before him, close at hand, and from his place</span>
<br/>
<span>Listening in mountain silence he could hear</span>
<br/>
<span>Birds crying far below. It was not fear</span>
<br/>
<span>That took him, but strange glory, when his eye</span>
<br/>
<span>Looked past he edge into surrounding sky.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-5-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He rose and stood. Then lo! the world beneath</span>
<br/>
<span>—Wide pools that in the sun-splashed foothills lay,</span>
<br/>
<span>Sheep-doted downs, soft-piled, and rolling heath,</span>
<br/>
<span>River and shining weir and steeples grey</span>
<br/>
<span>And the green waves of forest. Far away</span>
<br/>
<span>Distance rose heaped on distance: nearer hand,</span>
<br/>
<span>The white roads leading down to a new land.</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-6" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VI</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The sun was high in heaven and Dymer stood</span>
<br/>
<span>A bright speck on the endless mountain-side,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till, blossom after blossom, that rich mood</span>
<br/>
<span>Faded and truth rolled homeward, like a tide</span>
<br/>
<span>Before whose edge the weak soul fled to hide</span>
<br/>
<span>In vain, with ostrich head, through many a shape</span>
<br/>
<span>Of coward fancy, whimpering for escape.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But only for a moment; then his soul</span>
<br/>
<span>Took the full swell and heaved a dripping prow</span>
<br/>
<span>Clear of the shattering wave-crest. He was whole.</span>
<br/>
<span>No veils should hide the truth, no truth should cow</span>
<br/>
<span>The dear self-pitying heart. “I’ll babble now</span>
<br/>
<span>No longer,” Dymer said. “I’m broken in.</span>
<br/>
<span>Pack up the dreams and let the life begin.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>With this he turned. “I must have food to-day,”</span>
<br/>
<span>He muttered. Then among the cloudless hills</span>
<br/>
<span>By winding tracks he sought the downward way</span>
<br/>
<span>And followed the steep course of tumbling rills</span>
<br/>
<span>—Came to the glens the wakening mountain fills</span>
<br/>
<span>In springtime with the echoing splash and shock</span>
<br/>
<span>Of waters leaping cold from rock to rock.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And still, it seemed that lark with its refrain</span>
<br/>
<span>Sang in the sky, and wind was in his hair</span>
<br/>
<span>And hope at heart. Then once, and once again,</span>
<br/>
<span>He heard a gun fired off. It broke the air</span>
<br/>
<span>As a stone breaks a pond, and everywhere</span>
<br/>
<span>The dry crags echoed clear: and at the sound</span>
<br/>
<span>Once a big bird rose whirring from the ground.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>In half an hour he reached the level land</span>
<br/>
<span>And followed the field-paths and crossed the stiles,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then looked and saw, near by, on his left hand</span>
<br/>
<span>An old house, folded round with billowy piles</span>
<br/>
<span>Of dark yew hedge. The moss was on the tiles</span>
<br/>
<span>The pigeons in the yard, and in the tower</span>
<br/>
<span>A clock that had no hands and told no hour.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He hastened. In warm waves the garden scent</span>
<br/>
<span>Came stronger at each stride. The mountain breeze</span>
<br/>
<span>Was gone. He reached the gates; then in he went</span>
<br/>
<span>And seemed to lose the sky⁠—such weight of trees</span>
<br/>
<span>Hung overhead. He heard the noise of bees</span>
<br/>
<span>And saw, far off, in the blue shade between</span>
<br/>
<span>The windless elms, one walking on the green.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>It was a mighty man whose beardless face</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath grey hair shone out so large and mild</span>
<br/>
<span>It made a sort of moonlight in the place.</span>
<br/>
<span>A dreamy desperation, wistful-wild,</span>
<br/>
<span>Showed in his glance and gait: yet like a child,</span>
<br/>
<span>An Asian emperor’s only child, was he</span>
<br/>
<span>With his grave looks and bright solemnity.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And over him there hung in the witching air,</span>
<br/>
<span>The wilful courtesy, of the days of old,</span>
<br/>
<span>The graces wherein idleness grows fair;</span>
<br/>
<span>And somewhat in his sauntering walk he rolled</span>
<br/>
<span>And toyed about his waist with seals of gold,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or stood to ponder often in mid-stride,</span>
<br/>
<span>Tilting his heavy head upon one side.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>When Dymer had called twice, he turned his eye:</span>
<br/>
<span>Then, coming out of silence (as a star</span>
<br/>
<span>All in one moment slips into the sky</span>
<br/>
<span>Of evening, yet we feel it comes from far),</span>
<br/>
<span>He said, “Sir, you are welcome. Few there are</span>
<br/>
<span>That come my way”: and in huge hands he pressed</span>
<br/>
<span>Dymer’s cold hand and bade him into rest.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“How did you find this place out? Have you heard</span>
<br/>
<span>My gun? It was but now I killed a lark.”</span>
<br/>
<span>“What, Sir,” said Dymer; “shoot the singing bird?”</span>
<br/>
<span>“Sir,” said the man, “they sing from dawn till dark,</span>
<br/>
<span>And interrupt my dreams too long. But hark⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>Another? Did you hear no singing? No?</span>
<br/>
<span>It was my fancy, then⁠ ⁠… pray, let it go.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“From here you see my garden’s only flaw.</span>
<br/>
<span>Stand here, Sir, at the dial.” Dymer stood.</span>
<br/>
<span>The Master pointed; then he looked and saw</span>
<br/>
<span>How hedges and the funeral quietude</span>
<br/>
<span>Of black trees fringed the garden like a wood,</span>
<br/>
<span>And only, in one place, one gap that showed</span>
<br/>
<span>The blue side of the hills, the white hill-road.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“I have planted fir and larch to fill the gap,”<br/></span>
<br/>
<span>He said, “because this too makes war upon</span>
<br/>
<span>The art of dream. But by some great mishap</span>
<br/>
<span>Nothing I plant will grow there. We pass on⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>The sunshine of the afternoon is gone.</span>
<br/>
<span>Let us go in. It draws near time to sup</span>
<br/>
<span>—I hate the garden till the moon is up.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>They passed from the hot lawn into the gloom</span>
<br/>
<span>And coolness of the porch: then, past a door</span>
<br/>
<span>That opened with no noise, into a room</span>
<br/>
<span>Where green leaves choked the window and the floor</span>
<br/>
<span>Sank lower than the ground. A tattered store.</span>
<br/>
<span>Of brown books met the eye: a crystal ball:</span>
<br/>
<span>And masks with empty eyes along the wall.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then Dymer sat, but knew not how nor where,</span>
<br/>
<span>And supper was set out before these two,</span>
<br/>
<span>—He saw not how⁠—with silver old and rare</span>
<br/>
<span>But tarnished. And he ate and never knew</span>
<br/>
<span>What meats they were. At every bite he grew</span>
<br/>
<span>More drowsy and let slide his crumbling will.</span>
<br/>
<span>The Master at his side was talking still.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And all his talk was tales of magic words</span>
<br/>
<span>And of the nations in the clouds above,</span>
<br/>
<span>Astral and aerish tribes who fish for birds</span>
<br/>
<span>With angles. And by history he could prove</span>
<br/>
<span>How chosen spirits from earth had won their love,</span>
<br/>
<span>As Arthur, or Usheen: and to their isle</span>
<br/>
<span>Went Helen for the sake of a Greek smile.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And ever in his talk he mustered well</span>
<br/>
<span>His texts and strewed old authors round the way,</span>
<br/>
<span>“Thus Wierus writes,” and “Thus the Hermetics tell,”</span>
<br/>
<span>“This was Agrippa’s view,” and “Others say</span>
<br/>
<span>With Cardan,” till he had stolen quite away</span>
<br/>
<span>Dymer’s dull wits and softly drawn apart</span>
<br/>
<span>The ivory gates of hope that change the heart.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Dymer was talking now. Now Dymer told</span>
<br/>
<span>Of his own love and losing, drowsily.</span>
<br/>
<span>The Master leaned towards him, “Was it cold,</span>
<br/>
<span>This spirit, to the touch?”⁠—“No, Sir, not she,”</span>
<br/>
<span>Said Dymer. And his host: “Why this must be</span>
<br/>
<span>Aethereal, not aerial! O my soul,</span>
<br/>
<span>Be still⁠ ⁠… but wait. Tell on, Sir, tell the whole.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then Dymer told him of the beldam too,</span>
<br/>
<span>The old, old, matriarchal dreadfulness.</span>
<br/>
<span>Over the Master’s face a shadow drew,</span>
<br/>
<span>He shifted in his chair and “Yes” and “Yes,”</span>
<br/>
<span>He murmured twice. “I never looked for less!</span>
<br/>
<span>Always the same⁠ ⁠… that frightful woman shape</span>
<br/>
<span>Besets the dream-way and the soul’s escape.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But now when Dymer made to talk of Bran,</span>
<br/>
<span>A huge indifference fell upon his host,</span>
<br/>
<span>Patient and wandering-eyed. Then he began,</span>
<br/>
<span>“Forgive me. You are young. What helps us most</span>
<br/>
<span>Is to find out again that heavenly ghost</span>
<br/>
<span>Who loves you. For she was a ghost, and you</span>
<br/>
<span>In that place where you met were ghostly too.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Listen! for I can launch you on the stream</span>
<br/>
<span>Will roll you to the shores of her own land⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>I could be sworn you never learned to dream,</span>
<br/>
<span>But every night you take with careless hand</span>
<br/>
<span>What chance may bring? I’ll teach you to command</span>
<br/>
<span>The comings and the goings of your spirit</span>
<br/>
<span>Through all that borderland which dreams inherit.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“You shall have hauntings suddenly. And often,</span>
<br/>
<span>When you forget, when least you think of her</span>
<br/>
<span>(For so you shall forget), a light will soften</span>
<br/>
<span>Over the evening woods. And in the stir</span>
<br/>
<span>Of morning dreams (oh, I will teach you, Sir)</span>
<br/>
<span>There’ll come a sound of wings. Or you shall be</span>
<br/>
<span>Waked in the midnight murmuring, ‘It was she.’ ”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“No, no,” said Dymer, “not that way. I seem</span>
<br/>
<span>To have slept for twenty years. Now⁠—while I shake</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of my eyes that dust of burdening dream,</span>
<br/>
<span>Now when the long clouds tremble ripe to break</span>
<br/>
<span>And the far hills appear, when first I wake,</span>
<br/>
<span>Still blinking, struggling towards the world of men,</span>
<br/>
<span>And longing⁠—would you turn me back again?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Dreams? I have had my dream too long. I thought</span>
<br/>
<span>The sun rose for my sake. I ran down blind</span>
<br/>
<span>And dancing to the abyss. Oh, Sir, I brought</span>
<br/>
<span>Boy-laughter for a gift to gods who find</span>
<br/>
<span>The martyr’s soul too soft. But that’s behind.</span>
<br/>
<span>I’m waking now. They broke me. All ends thus</span>
<br/>
<span>Always⁠—and we’re for them, not they for us.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“And she⁠—she was no dream. It would be waste</span>
<br/>
<span>To seek her there, the living in that den</span>
<br/>
<span>Of lies.” The Master smiled. “You are in haste!</span>
<br/>
<span>For broken dreams the cure is, Dream again</span>
<br/>
<span>And deeper. If the waking world, and men,</span>
<br/>
<span>And nature marred your dream⁠—so much the worse</span>
<br/>
<span>For a crude world beneath its primal curse.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“Ah, but you do not know! Can dreams do this,</span>
<br/>
<span>Pluck out blood-guiltiness upon the shore</span>
<br/>
<span>Or memory⁠—and undo what’s done amiss,</span>
<br/>
<span>And bid the thing that has been be no more?”</span>
<br/>
<span>—“Sir, it is only dreams unlock that door,”</span>
<br/>
<span>He answered with a shrug. “What would you have?</span>
<br/>
<span>In dreams the thrice-proved coward can feel brave.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“In dreams the fool is free from scorning voices.</span>
<br/>
<span>Grey-headed whores are virgin there again.</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of the past dream brings long-buried choices,</span>
<br/>
<span>All in a moment snaps the tenfold chain</span>
<br/>
<span>That life took years in forging. There the stain</span>
<br/>
<span>Of oldest sins⁠—how do the good words go?⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Though they were scarlet, shall be white as snow.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then, drawing near, when Dymer did not speak,</span>
<br/>
<span>“My little son,” said he, “your wrong and right</span>
<br/>
<span>Are also dreams: fetters to bind the weak</span>
<br/>
<span>Faster to phantom earth and blear the sight.</span>
<br/>
<span>Wake into dreams, into the larger light</span>
<br/>
<span>That quenches these frail stars. They will not know</span>
<br/>
<span>Earth’s bye-laws in the land to which you go.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“I must undo my sins.”⁠—“An earthly law,</span>
<br/>
<span>And, even in earth, the child of yesterday.</span>
<br/>
<span>Throw down your human pity; cast your awe</span>
<br/>
<span>Behind you; put repentance all away.</span>
<br/>
<span>Home to the elder depths! for never they</span>
<br/>
<span>Supped with the stars who dared not slough behind</span>
<br/>
<span>The last shred of earth’s holies from their mind.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Sir,” answered Dymer, “I would be content</span>
<br/>
<span>To drudge in earth, easing my heart’s disgrace,</span>
<br/>
<span>Counting a year’s long service lightly spent</span>
<br/>
<span>If once at the year’s end I saw her face</span>
<br/>
<span>Somewhere, being then most weary, in some place</span>
<br/>
<span>I looked not for that joy⁠—or heard her near</span>
<br/>
<span>Whispering, ‘Yet courage, friend,’ for one more year.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Pish,” said the Master. “Will you have the truth?</span>
<br/>
<span>You think that virtue saves? Her people care</span>
<br/>
<span>For the high heart and idle hours of youth;</span>
<br/>
<span>For these they will descend our lower air,</span>
<br/>
<span>Not virtue. You would nerve your arm and bear</span>
<br/>
<span>Your burden among men? Look to it, child:</span>
<br/>
<span>By virtue’s self vision can be defiled.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“You will grow full of pity and the love of men,</span>
<br/>
<span>And toil until the morning moisture dries</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of your heart. Then once, or once again,</span>
<br/>
<span>It may be you will find her: but your eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>Soon will be grown too dim. The task that lies</span>
<br/>
<span>Next to your hand will hide her. You shall be</span>
<br/>
<span>The child of earth and gods you shall not see.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Here suddenly he ceased. Tip-toes he went.</span>
<br/>
<span>A bolt clicked⁠—then the window creaked ajar,</span>
<br/>
<span>And out of the wet world the hedgerow scent</span>
<br/>
<span>Came floating; and the dark without one star</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor shape of trees nor sense of near and far,</span>
<br/>
<span>The undimensioned night and formless skies</span>
<br/>
<span>Were there, and were the Master’s great allies.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-33">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">33</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“I am very old,” he said. “But if the time</span>
<br/>
<span>We suffer in our dreams were counted age,</span>
<br/>
<span>I have outlived the ocean and my prime</span>
<br/>
<span>Is with me to this day. Years cannot gauge</span>
<br/>
<span>The dream-life. In the turning of a page,</span>
<br/>
<span>Dozing above my book, I have lived through</span>
<br/>
<span>More ages than the lost Lemuria knew.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-34">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">34</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“I am not mortal. Were I doomed to die</span>
<br/>
<span>This hour, in this half-hour I interpose</span>
<br/>
<span>A thousand years of dream: and, those gone by,</span>
<br/>
<span>As many more, and in the last of those,</span>
<br/>
<span>Ten thousand⁠—ever journeying towards a close</span>
<br/>
<span>That I shall never reach: for time shall flow,</span>
<br/>
<span>Wheel within wheel, interminably slow.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-35">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">35</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“And you will drink my cup and go your way</span>
<br/>
<span>Into the valley of dreams. You have heard the call.</span>
<br/>
<span>Come hither and escape. Why should you stay?</span>
<br/>
<span>Earth is a sinking ship, a house whose wall</span>
<br/>
<span>Is tottering while you sweep; the roof will fall</span>
<br/>
<span>Before the work is done. You cannot mend it.</span>
<br/>
<span>Patch as you will, at last the rot must end it.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-6-stanza-36">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">36</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then Dymer lifted up his heavy head</span>
<br/>
<span>Like Atlas on broad shoulders bearing up</span>
<br/>
<span>The insufferable globe. “I had not said,”</span>
<br/>
<span>He mumbled, “never said I’d taste the cup.</span>
<br/>
<span>What, is it this you give me? Must I sup?</span>
<br/>
<span>Oh, lies, all lies⁠ ⁠… Why did you kill the lark?</span>
<br/>
<span>Guide me the cup to lip⁠ ⁠… it is so dark.”</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-7" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VII</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The host had trimmed his lamp. The downy moth</span>
<br/>
<span>Came from the garden. Where the lamplight shed</span>
<br/>
<span>Its circle of smooth white upon the cloth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Down mid the rinds of fruit and broken bread,</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon his sprawling arms lay Dymer’s head;</span>
<br/>
<span>And often, as he dreamed, he shifted place,</span>
<br/>
<span>Muttering and showing half his drunken face.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The beating stillness of the dead of night</span>
<br/>
<span>Flooded the room. The dark and sleepy powers</span>
<br/>
<span>Settled upon the house and filled it quite;</span>
<br/>
<span>Far from the roads it lay, from belfry towers</span>
<br/>
<span>And hen-roosts, in a world of folded flowers,</span>
<br/>
<span>Buried in loneliest fields where beasts that love</span>
<br/>
<span>The silence through the unrustled hedgerows move.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Now from the Master’s lips there breathed a sigh</span>
<br/>
<span>As of a man released from some control</span>
<br/>
<span>That wronged him. Without aim his wandering eye,</span>
<br/>
<span>Unsteadied and unfixed, began to roll.</span>
<br/>
<span>His lower lip dropped loose. The informing soul</span>
<br/>
<span>Seemed fading from his face. He laughed out loud</span>
<br/>
<span>Once only: then looked round him, hushed and cowed.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then, summoning all himself, with tightened lip,</span>
<br/>
<span>With desperate coolness and attentive air,</span>
<br/>
<span>He touched between his thumb and finger-tip,</span>
<br/>
<span>Each in its turn, the four legs of his chair,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then back again in haste⁠—there!⁠—that one there</span>
<br/>
<span>Had been forgotten⁠ ⁠… once more!⁠ ⁠… safer now;</span>
<br/>
<span>That’s better! and he smiled and cleared his brow.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Yet this was but a moment’s ease. Once more</span>
<br/>
<span>He glanced about him like a startled hare,</span>
<br/>
<span>His big eyes bulged with horror. As before,</span>
<br/>
<span>Quick!⁠—to the touch that saves him. But despair</span>
<br/>
<span>Is nearer by one step; and in his chair</span>
<br/>
<span>Huddling he waits. He knows that they’ll come strong</span>
<br/>
<span>Again and yet again and all night long;</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And, after this night comes another night</span>
<br/>
<span>—Night after night until the worst of all.</span>
<br/>
<span>And now too even the noonday and the light</span>
<br/>
<span>Let through the horrors. Oh, could he recall</span>
<br/>
<span>The deep sleep and the dreams that used to fall</span>
<br/>
<span>Around him for the asking! But, somehow,</span>
<br/>
<span>Something’s amiss⁠ ⁠… sleep comes so rarely now.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then, like the dog returning to its vomit,</span>
<br/>
<span>He staggered to the bookcase to renew</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet once again the taint he had taken from it,</span>
<br/>
<span>And shuddered as he went. But horrors drew</span>
<br/>
<span>His feet, as joy draws others. There in view</span>
<br/>
<span>Was his strange heaven and his far stranger hell,</span>
<br/>
<span>His secret lust, his soul’s dark citadel:⁠—</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Old Theomagia, Demonology,</span>
<br/>
<span>Cabbala, Chemic Magic, Book of the Dead,</span>
<br/>
<span>Damning Hermetic rolls that none may see</span>
<br/>
<span>Save the already damned⁠—such grubs are bred</span>
<br/>
<span>From minds that lose the Spirit and seek instead</span>
<br/>
<span>For spirits in the dust of dead men’s error,</span>
<br/>
<span>Buying the joys of dream with dreamland terror.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>This lost soul looked them over one and all,</span>
<br/>
<span>Now sickening at the heart’s root; for he knew</span>
<br/>
<span>This night was one of those when he would fall</span>
<br/>
<span>And scream alone (such things they made him do)</span>
<br/>
<span>And roll upon the floor. The madness grew</span>
<br/>
<span>Wild at his breast, but still his brain was clear</span>
<br/>
<span>That he could watch the moment coming near.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But, ere it came, he heard a sound, half groan,</span>
<br/>
<span>Half muttering, from the table. Like a child</span>
<br/>
<span>Caught unawares that thought it was alone,</span>
<br/>
<span>He started as in guilt. His gaze was wild,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet pitiably with all his will he smiled,</span>
<br/>
<span>—So strong is shame, even then. And Dymer stirred,</span>
<br/>
<span>Now waking, and looked up and spoke one word:</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Water!” he said. He was too dazed to see</span>
<br/>
<span>What hell-wrung face looked down, what shaking hand</span>
<br/>
<span>Poured out the draught. He drank it thirstily</span>
<br/>
<span>And held the glass for more. “Your land⁠ ⁠… your land</span>
<br/>
<span>Of dreams,” he said. “All lies!⁠ ⁠… I understand</span>
<br/>
<span>More than I did. Yes, water. I’ve the thirst</span>
<br/>
<span>Of hell itself. Your magic’s all accursed.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>When he had drunk again he rose and stood,</span>
<br/>
<span>Pallid and cold with sleep. “By God,” he said,</span>
<br/>
<span>“You did me wrong to send me to that wood.</span>
<br/>
<span>I sought a living spirit and found instead</span>
<br/>
<span>Bogies and wraiths.” The Master raised his head,</span>
<br/>
<span>Calm as a sage, and answered, “Are you mad?</span>
<br/>
<span>Come, sit you down. Tell me what dream you had.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“I dreamed about a wood⁠ ⁠… an autumn red</span>
<br/>
<span>Of beech-trees big as mountains. Down between⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>The first thing that I saw⁠—a clearing spread,</span>
<br/>
<span>Deep down, oh, very deep. Like some ravine</span>
<br/>
<span>Or like a well it sank, that forest green</span>
<br/>
<span>Under its weight of forest⁠—more remote</span>
<br/>
<span>Than one ship in a landlocked sea afloat.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Then through the narrowed sky some heavy bird</span>
<br/>
<span>Would flap its way, a stillness more profound</span>
<br/>
<span>Following its languid wings. Sometimes I heard</span>
<br/>
<span>Far off in the long woods with quiet sound</span>
<br/>
<span>The sudden chestnut thumping to the ground,</span>
<br/>
<span>Or the dry leaf that drifted past upon</span>
<br/>
<span>Its endless loiter earthward and was gone.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“The next⁠ ⁠… I heard twigs splintering on my right</span>
<br/>
<span>And rustling in the thickets. Turning there</span>
<br/>
<span>I watched. Out of the foliage came in sight</span>
<br/>
<span>The head and blundering shoulders of a bear,</span>
<br/>
<span>Glistening in sable black, with beady stare</span>
<br/>
<span>Of eyes towards me, and no room to fly</span>
<br/>
<span>—But padding soft and slow the beast came by.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“And⁠—mark their flattery⁠—stood and rubbed his flank</span>
<br/>
<span>Against me. On my shaken legs I felt</span>
<br/>
<span>His heart beat. And my hand that stroked him sank</span>
<br/>
<span>Wrist-deep upon his shoulder in soft pelt.</span>
<br/>
<span>Yes⁠ ⁠… and across my spirit as I smelt</span>
<br/>
<span>The wild thing’s scent, a new, sweet wildness ran</span>
<br/>
<span>Whispering of Eden-fields long lost by man.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“So far was well. But then came emerald birds</span>
<br/>
<span>Singing about my head. I took my way</span>
<br/>
<span>Sauntering the cloistered woods. Then came the herds,</span>
<br/>
<span>The roebuck and the fallow deer at play,</span>
<br/>
<span>Trooping to nose my hand. All this, you say,</span>
<br/>
<span>Was sweet? Oh, sweet!⁠ ⁠… do you think I could not see</span>
<br/>
<span>That beats and wood were nothing else but me?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“… That I was making everything I saw,</span>
<br/>
<span>Too sweet, far too well fitted to desire</span>
<br/>
<span>To be a living thing? Those forests draw</span>
<br/>
<span>No sap from the kind earth: the solar fire</span>
<br/>
<span>And soft rain feed them not: that fairy brier</span>
<br/>
<span>Pricks not: the birds sing sweetly in that brake</span>
<br/>
<span>Not for their own delight but for my sake!</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“It is a world of sad, cold, heartless stuff,</span>
<br/>
<span>Like a bought smile, no joy in it.”⁠—“But stay;</span>
<br/>
<span>Did you not find your lady?”⁠—“Sure enough!</span>
<br/>
<span>I still had hopes till then. The autumn day</span>
<br/>
<span>Was westering, the long shadows crossed my way,</span>
<br/>
<span>When over daisies folded for the night</span>
<br/>
<span>Beneath rook-gathering elms she came in sight.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“Was she not fair?”⁠—“So beautiful, she seemed</span>
<br/>
<span>Almost a living soul. But every part</span>
<br/>
<span>Was what I made it⁠—all that I had dreamed⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>No more, no less: the mirror of my heart,</span>
<br/>
<span>Such things as boyhood feigns beneath the smart</span>
<br/>
<span>Of solitude and spring. I was deceived</span>
<br/>
<span>Almost. In that first moment I believed.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“For a big, brooding rapture, tense as fire</span>
<br/>
<span>And calm as a first sleep, had soaked me through</span>
<br/>
<span>Without thought, without word, without desire⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>Meanwhile above our heads the deepening blue</span>
<br/>
<span>Burnished the gathering stars. Her sweetness drew</span>
<br/>
<span>A veil before my eyes. The minutes passed</span>
<br/>
<span>Heavy like loaded vines. She spoke at last.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“She said, for this land only did men love</span>
<br/>
<span>The shadow-lands of earth. All our disease</span>
<br/>
<span>Of longing, all the hopes we fabled of,</span>
<br/>
<span>Fortunate islands or Hesperian seas</span>
<br/>
<span>Or woods beyond the West, were but the breeze</span>
<br/>
<span>That blew from off those shores: one far, spent breath</span>
<br/>
<span>That reached even to the world of change and death.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“She told me I had journeyed home at last</span>
<br/>
<span>Into the golden age and the good countrie</span>
<br/>
<span>That had been always there. She bade me cast</span>
<br/>
<span>My cares behind forever:⁠—on her knee</span>
<br/>
<span>Worshipped me, lord and love⁠—oh, I can see</span>
<br/>
<span>Her red lips even now! Is it not wrong</span>
<br/>
<span>That men’s delusions should be made so strong?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“For listen, I was so besotted now</span>
<br/>
<span>She made me think that I was somehow seeing</span>
<br/>
<span>The very core of truth⁠ ⁠… I felt somehow,</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond all veils, the inward pulse of being.</span>
<br/>
<span>Thought was enslaved, but oh, it felt like freeing</span>
<br/>
<span>And draughts of larger air. It is too much!</span>
<br/>
<span>Who can come through untainted from that touch?</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“There I was nearly wrecked. But mark the rest:</span>
<br/>
<span>She went too fast. Soft to my arms she came.</span>
<br/>
<span>The robe slipped from her shoulder. The smooth breast</span>
<br/>
<span>Was bare against my own. She shone like flame</span>
<br/>
<span>Before me in the dusk, all love, all shame⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Faugh!⁠—and it was myself. But all was well,</span>
<br/>
<span>For, at the least, that moment snapped the spell.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“As when you light a candle, the great gloom</span>
<br/>
<span>Which was the unbounded night, sinks down, compressed</span>
<br/>
<span>To four white walls in one familiar room,</span>
<br/>
<span>So the vague joy shrank wilted in my breast</span>
<br/>
<span>And narrowed to one point, unmasked, confessed;</span>
<br/>
<span>Fool’s paradise was gone: instead was there</span>
<br/>
<span>King Lust with his black, sudden, serious stare.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“That moment in a cloud among the trees</span>
<br/>
<span>Wild music and the glare of torches came.</span>
<br/>
<span>On sweated faces, on the prancing knees</span>
<br/>
<span>Of shaggy satyrs fell the smoky flame,</span>
<br/>
<span>On ape and goat and crawlers without name,</span>
<br/>
<span>On rolling breast, black eyes and tossing hair,</span>
<br/>
<span>On old bald-headed witches, lean and bare.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“They beat the devilish tom-tom rub-a-dub;</span>
<br/>
<span>Lunging, leaping, in unwieldy romp,</span>
<br/>
<span>Singing Cotytto and Beelzebub,</span>
<br/>
<span>With devil-dancers’ mask and phallic pomp,</span>
<br/>
<span>Torn raw with briers and caked from many a swamp,</span>
<br/>
<span>They came, among the wild flowers dripping blood</span>
<br/>
<span>And churning the green mosses into mud.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“They sang, ‘Return! Return! We are the lust</span>
<br/>
<span>That was before the world and still shall be</span>
<br/>
<span>When your last law is trampled into dust,</span>
<br/>
<span>We are the mother swamp, the primal sea</span>
<br/>
<span>Whence the dry land appeared. Old, old are we.</span>
<br/>
<span>It is but a return⁠ ⁠… it’s nothing new,</span>
<br/>
<span>Easy as slipping on a well-worn shoe.’</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“And then there came warm mouths and finger-tips</span>
<br/>
<span>Preying upon me, whence I could not see,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then⁠ ⁠… a huge face, low-browed, with swollen lips</span>
<br/>
<span>Crooning, ‘I am not beautiful as she,</span>
<br/>
<span>But I’m the older love; you shall love me</span>
<br/>
<span>Far more than Beauty’s self. You have been ours</span>
<br/>
<span>Always. We are the world’s most ancient powers.’</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“First flatterer and then bogey⁠—like a dream!</span>
<br/>
<span>Sir, are you listening? Do you also know</span>
<br/>
<span>How close to the soft laughter comes the scream</span>
<br/>
<span>Down yonder?” But his host cried sharply, “No.</span>
<br/>
<span>Leave me alone. Why will you plague me? Go!</span>
<br/>
<span>Out of my house! Begone!”⁠—“With all my heart,”</span>
<br/>
<span>Said Dymer. “But one word before we part.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He paused, and in his cheek the anger burned:</span>
<br/>
<span>Then turning to the table, he poured out</span>
<br/>
<span>More water. But before he drank he turned⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Then leaped back to the window with a shout</span>
<br/>
<span>For there⁠—it was no dream⁠—beyond all doubt</span>
<br/>
<span>He saw the Master crouch with levelled gun,</span>
<br/>
<span>Cackling in maniac voice, “Run, Dymer, run!”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-7-stanza-33">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">33</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He ducked and sprang far out. The starless night</span>
<br/>
<span>On the wet lawn closed round him every way.</span>
<br/>
<span>Then came the gun-crack and the splash of light</span>
<br/>
<span>Vanished as soon as seen. Cool garden clay</span>
<br/>
<span>Slid from his feet. He had fallen and he lay</span>
<br/>
<span>Face downward among leaves⁠—then up and on</span>
<br/>
<span>Through branch and leaf till sense and breath were gone.</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-8" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VIII</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>When next he found himself no house was there,</span>
<br/>
<span>No garden and great trees. Beside a lane</span>
<br/>
<span>In grass he lay. Now first he was aware</span>
<br/>
<span>That, all one side, his body glowed with pain:</span>
<br/>
<span>And the next moment and the next again</span>
<br/>
<span>Was neither less nor more. Without a pause</span>
<br/>
<span>It clung like a great beast with fastened claws;</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>That for a time he could not frame a thought</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor know himself for self, nor pain for pain,</span>
<br/>
<span>Till moment added on to moment taught</span>
<br/>
<span>The new, strange art of living on that plane,</span>
<br/>
<span>Taught how the grappled soul must still remain,</span>
<br/>
<span>Still choose and think and understand beneath</span>
<br/>
<span>The very grinding of the ogre’s teeth.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He heard the wind along the hedges sweep,</span>
<br/>
<span>The quarter striking from a neighbouring tower.</span>
<br/>
<span>About him was the weight of the world’s sleep;</span>
<br/>
<span>Within, the thundering pain. That quiet hour</span>
<br/>
<span>Heeded it not. It throbbed, it raged with power</span>
<br/>
<span>Fit to convulse the heavens: and at his side</span>
<br/>
<span>The soft peace drenched the meadows far and wide.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The air was cold, the earth was cold with dew,</span>
<br/>
<span>The hedge behind him dark as ink. But now</span>
<br/>
<span>The clouds broke and a paler heaven showed through</span>
<br/>
<span>Spacious with sudden stars, breathing somehow</span>
<br/>
<span>The sense of change to slumbering lands. A cow</span>
<br/>
<span>Coughed in the fields behind. The puddles showed</span>
<br/>
<span>Like pools of sky amid the darker road.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And he could see his own limbs faintly white</span>
<br/>
<span>And the blood black upon them. Then by chance</span>
<br/>
<span>He turned⁠ ⁠… and it was strange: there at his right</span>
<br/>
<span>He saw a woman standing, and her glance</span>
<br/>
<span>Met his: and at the meeting his deep trance</span>
<br/>
<span>Changed not, and while he looked the knowledge grew</span>
<br/>
<span>She was not of the old life but the new.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Who is it?” he said. “The loved one, the long lost.”</span>
<br/>
<span>He stared upon her. “Truly?”⁠—“Truly indeed.”</span>
<br/>
<span>—“Oh, lady, you come late. I am tempest-tossed,</span>
<br/>
<span>Broken and wrecked. I am dying. Look, I bleed.</span>
<br/>
<span>Why have you left me thus and given no heed</span>
<br/>
<span>To all my prayer?⁠—left me to be the game</span>
<br/>
<span>Of all deceits?”⁠—“You should have asked my name.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“What are you, then?” But to his sudden cry</span>
<br/>
<span>She did not answer. When he had thought awhile</span>
<br/>
<span>He said: “How can I tell it is no lie?</span>
<br/>
<span>It may be one more phantom to beguile</span>
<br/>
<span>The brain-sick dreamer with its harlot smile.”</span>
<br/>
<span>“I have not smiled,” she said. The neighbouring bell</span>
<br/>
<span>Tolled out another quarter. Silence fell.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And after a long pause he spoke again:</span>
<br/>
<span>“Leave me,” he said. “Why do you watch with me?</span>
<br/>
<span>You do not love me. Human tears and pain</span>
<br/>
<span>And hoping for the things that cannot be,</span>
<br/>
<span>And blundering in the night where none can see,</span>
<br/>
<span>And courage with cold back against the wall,</span>
<br/>
<span>You do not understand.”⁠—“I know them all.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“The gods themselves know pain, the eternal forms.</span>
<br/>
<span>In realms beyond the reach of cloud, and skies</span>
<br/>
<span>Nearest the ends of air, where come no storms</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor sound of earth, I have looked into their eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>Peaceful and filled with pain beyond surmise,</span>
<br/>
<span>Filled with an ancient woe man cannot reach</span>
<br/>
<span>One moment though in fire; yet calm their speech.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Then these,” said Dymer, “were the world I wooed⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>These were the holiness of lowers and grass</span>
<br/>
<span>And desolate dews⁠ ⁠… these, the eternal mood</span>
<br/>
<span>Blowing the eternal theme through men that pass.</span>
<br/>
<span>I called myself their lover⁠—I that was</span>
<br/>
<span>Less fit for that long service than the least</span>
<br/>
<span>Dull, work-day drudge of men or faithful beast.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Why do they lure to them such spirits as mine,</span>
<br/>
<span>The weak, the passionate, and the fool of dreams?</span>
<br/>
<span>When better men go safe and never pine</span>
<br/>
<span>With whisperings at the heart, soul-sickening gleams</span>
<br/>
<span>Of infinite desire, and joy that seems</span>
<br/>
<span>The promise of full power? For it was they,</span>
<br/>
<span>The gods themselves, that led me on this way.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Give me the truth! I ask not now for pity.</span>
<br/>
<span>When gods call, can the following them be sin?</span>
<br/>
<span>Was it false light that lured me from the City?</span>
<br/>
<span>Where was the path⁠—without it or within?</span>
<br/>
<span>Must it be one blind throw to lose or win?</span>
<br/>
<span>Has heaven no voice to help? Must things of dust</span>
<br/>
<span>Guess their own way in the dark?” She said, “They must.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Another silence: then he cried in wrath,</span>
<br/>
<span>“You came in human shape, in sweet disguise</span>
<br/>
<span>Wooing me, lurking for me in my path,</span>
<br/>
<span>Hid your eternal cold with woman’s eyes,</span>
<br/>
<span>Snared me with shows of love⁠—and all was lies.”</span>
<br/>
<span>She answered, “For our kind must come to all</span>
<br/>
<span>If bidden, but in the shape for which they call.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“What!” answered Dymer. “Do you change and sway</span>
<br/>
<span>To serve us, as the obedient planets spin</span>
<br/>
<span>About the sun? Are you but potter’s clay</span>
<br/>
<span>For us to mould⁠—unholy to our sin</span>
<br/>
<span>And holy to holiness within?”</span>
<br/>
<span>She said, “Waves fall on many an unclean shore,</span>
<br/>
<span>Yet the salt seas are holy as before.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Our nature is no purer for the saint</span>
<br/>
<span>That worships, nor from him that uses ill</span>
<br/>
<span>Our beauty can we suffer any taint.</span>
<br/>
<span>As from the first we were, so are we still:</span>
<br/>
<span>With incorruptibles the moral will</span>
<br/>
<span>Corrupts itself, and clouded eyes will make</span>
<br/>
<span>Darkness within from beams they cannot take.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Well⁠ ⁠… it is well,” said Dymer. “If I have used</span>
<br/>
<span>The embreathing spirit amiss⁠ ⁠… what would have been</span>
<br/>
<span>The strength of all my days I have refused</span>
<br/>
<span>And plucked the stalk, too hasty, in the green,</span>
<br/>
<span>Trusted the good for best, and having seen</span>
<br/>
<span>Half-beauty, or beauty’s fringe, the lowest stair,</span>
<br/>
<span>The common incantation, worshipped there.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>But presently he cried in his great pain,</span>
<br/>
<span>“If I had loved a beast it would repay,</span>
<br/>
<span>But I have loved the Spirit and loved in vain.</span>
<br/>
<span>Now let me die⁠ ⁠… ah, but before the way</span>
<br/>
<span>Is ended quite, in the last hour of day,</span>
<br/>
<span>Is there no word of comfort, no one kiss</span>
<br/>
<span>Of human love? Does it all end in this?”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>She answered, “Never ask of life and death.</span>
<br/>
<span>Uttering these names you dream of wormy clay</span>
<br/>
<span>Or of surviving ghosts. This withering breath</span>
<br/>
<span>Of words is the beginning of decay</span>
<br/>
<span>In truth, when truth grows cold and pines away</span>
<br/>
<span>Among the ancestral images. Your eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>First see her dead: and more, the more she dies.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“You are still dreaming, dreams you shall forget</span>
<br/>
<span>When you have cast your fetters, far from here.</span>
<br/>
<span>Go forth; the journey is not ended yet.</span>
<br/>
<span>You have seen Dymer dead and on the bier</span>
<br/>
<span>More often than you dream and dropped no tear,</span>
<br/>
<span>You have slain him every hour. Think not al all</span>
<br/>
<span>Or death lest into death by thought you fall.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He turned to question her, then looked again,</span>
<br/>
<span>And lo! the shape was gone. The darkness lay</span>
<br/>
<span>Heavy as yet and a cold, shifting rain</span>
<br/>
<span>Fell with the breeze that springs before the day.</span>
<br/>
<span>It was an hour death loves. Across the way</span>
<br/>
<span>The clock struck once again. He saw near by</span>
<br/>
<span>The black shape of the tower against the sky.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Meanwhile above the torture and the riot</span>
<br/>
<span>Of leaping pulse and nerve that shot with pain,</span>
<br/>
<span>Somewhere aloof and poised in spectral quiet</span>
<br/>
<span>His soul was thinking on. The dizzied brain</span>
<br/>
<span>Scarce seemed her organ: link by link the chain</span>
<br/>
<span>That bound him to the flesh was loosening fast</span>
<br/>
<span>And the new life breathed in unmoved and vast.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“It was like this,” he thought⁠—“like this, or worse,</span>
<br/>
<span>For him that I found bleeding in the wood⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>Blessings upon him⁠ ⁠… there I learned the curse</span>
<br/>
<span>That rests on Dymer’s name, and truth was good.</span>
<br/>
<span>He has forgotten now the fire and blood,</span>
<br/>
<span>He has forgotten that there was a man</span>
<br/>
<span>Called Dymer. He knows not himself nor Bran.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“How long have I been moved at heart in vain</span>
<br/>
<span>About this Dymer, thinking this was I⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>Why did I follow close his joy and pain</span>
<br/>
<span>More than another man’s? For he will die,</span>
<br/>
<span>The little cloud will vanish and the sky</span>
<br/>
<span>Reign as before. The stars remain and earth</span>
<br/>
<span>And Man, as in the years before my birth.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“There was a Dymer once who worked and played</span>
<br/>
<span>About the City; I sloughed him off and ran.</span>
<br/>
<span>There was a Dymer in the forest glade</span>
<br/>
<span>Ranting alone, skulking the fates of man.</span>
<br/>
<span>I cast him also, and a third began</span>
<br/>
<span>And he too died. But I am none of those.</span>
<br/>
<span>Is there another still to die⁠ ⁠… Who knows?”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then in his pain, half wondering what he did,</span>
<br/>
<span>He made to struggle towards that belfried place.</span>
<br/>
<span>And groaning down the sodden bank he slid,</span>
<br/>
<span>And groaning in the lane he left his trace</span>
<br/>
<span>Of bloodied mire: then halted with his face</span>
<br/>
<span>Upwards, towards the gateway, breathing hard</span>
<br/>
<span>—An old lych-gate before a burial-yard.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-8-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>He looked within. Between the huddling crosses,</span>
<br/>
<span>Over the slanted tombs and sunken slate</span>
<br/>
<span>Spread the deep quiet grass and humble mosses,</span>
<br/>
<span>A green and growing darkness, drenched of late,</span>
<br/>
<span>Smelling of earth and damp. He reached the gate</span>
<br/>
<span>With failing hand. “I will rest here,” he said,</span>
<br/>
<span>“And the long grass will cool my burning head.”</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
<article id="dymer-chapter-9" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem">
<h3>
<span epub:type="label">Canto</span>
<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">IX</span>
</h3>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-1">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">1</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Even as he heard the wicket clash behind</span>
<br/>
<span>Came a great wind beneath that seemed to tear</span>
<br/>
<span>The solid graves apart; and deaf and blind</span>
<br/>
<span>Whirled him upright, like smoke, through towering air</span>
<br/>
<span>Whose levels were as steps of a sky stair.</span>
<br/>
<span>The parching cold roughened his throat with thirst</span>
<br/>
<span>And pricked him at the heart. This was the first.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-2">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">2</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And as he soared into the next degree,</span>
<br/>
<span>Suddenly all round him he could hear</span>
<br/>
<span>Sad strings that fretted inconsolably</span>
<br/>
<span>And ominous horns that blew both far and near.</span>
<br/>
<span>There broke his human heart, and his last tear</span>
<br/>
<span>Froze scalding on his chin. But while he heard</span>
<br/>
<span>He shot like a sped dart into the third.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-3">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">3</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And its first stroke of silence could destroy</span>
<br/>
<span>The spring of tears forever and compress</span>
<br/>
<span>From off his lips the curved bow of the boy</span>
<br/>
<span>Forever. The sidereal loneliness</span>
<br/>
<span>Received him, where no journeying leaves the less</span>
<br/>
<span>Still to be journeyed through: but everywhere,</span>
<br/>
<span>Fast though you fly, the centre still is there.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-4">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">4</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And here the well-worn fabric of our life</span>
<br/>
<span>Fell from him. Hope and purpose were cut short,</span>
<br/>
<span>—Even the blind trust that reaches in mid-strife</span>
<br/>
<span>Towards some heart of things. Here blew the mort</span>
<br/>
<span>For the world spirit herself. The last support</span>
<br/>
<span>Was fallen away⁠—Himself, one spark of soul,</span>
<br/>
<span>Swam in unbroken void. He was the whole,</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-5">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">5</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And wailing: “Why hast Thou forsaken me?</span>
<br/>
<span>Was there no world at all, but only I</span>
<br/>
<span>Dreaming of gods and men?” Then suddenly</span>
<br/>
<span>He felt the wind no more: he seemed to fly</span>
<br/>
<span>Faster than light but free, and scaled the sky</span>
<br/>
<span>In his own strength⁠—as if a falling stone</span>
<br/>
<span>Should wake to find the world’s will was its own.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-6">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">6</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And on the instant, straight before his eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>He looked and saw a sentry shape that stood</span>
<br/>
<span>Leaning upon its spear, with hurrying skies</span>
<br/>
<span>Behind it and a moonset red as blood.</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon its head were helmet and mailed hood,</span>
<br/>
<span>And shield upon its arm and sword at thigh,</span>
<br/>
<span>All black and pointed sharp against the sky.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-7">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">7</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then came the clink of metal, the dry sound</span>
<br/>
<span>Of steel on rock and challenge: “Who comes here?”</span>
<br/>
<span>And as he heard it, Dymer at one bound</span>
<br/>
<span>Stood in the stranger’s shadow, with the spear</span>
<br/>
<span>Between them. And his human face came near</span>
<br/>
<span>That larger face. “What watch is this you keep,”</span>
<br/>
<span>Said Dymer, “on edge of such a deep?”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-8">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">8</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And answer came, “I watch both night and day</span>
<br/>
<span>This frontier⁠ ⁠… there are beasts of the upper air</span>
<br/>
<span>As beasts of the deep sea⁠ ⁠… one walks this way</span>
<br/>
<span>Night after night, far scouring from his lair,</span>
<br/>
<span>Chewing the cud of lusts which are despair</span>
<br/>
<span>And fill not, while his mouth gapes dry for bliss</span>
<br/>
<span>That never was.”⁠—“What kind of beast is this?”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-9">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">9</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“A kind of things escaped that have no home,</span>
<br/>
<span>Hunters of men. They love the spring uncurled,</span>
<br/>
<span>The will worn down, the wearied hour. They come</span>
<br/>
<span>At night-time when the mask is off the world</span>
<br/>
<span>And the soul’s gate ill-locked and the flag furled</span>
<br/>
<span>—Then, softly, a pale swarm, and in disguise,</span>
<br/>
<span>Flit past the drowsy watchman, small as flies.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-10">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">10</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“I’ll see this aerish beast whereof you speak.</span>
<br/>
<span>I’ll share the watch with you.”⁠—“Nay, little One,</span>
<br/>
<span>Begone. You are of earth. The flesh is weak⁠ ⁠…”</span>
<br/>
<span>—“What is the flesh to me? My course is run,<br/></span>
<br/>
<span>All but some deed still waiting to be done,</span>
<br/>
<span>Some moment I may rise on, as the boat</span>
<br/>
<span>Lifts with the lifting tide and steals afloat.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-11">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">11</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“You are a spirit, and it is well with you,</span>
<br/>
<span>But I am come out of great folly and shame,</span>
<br/>
<span>The sack of cities, wrongs I must undo⁠ ⁠…</span>
<br/>
<span>But tell me of the beast, and whence it came;</span>
<br/>
<span>Who were its sire and dam? What is its name?”</span>
<br/>
<span>—“It is my kin. All monsters are the brood</span>
<br/>
<span>Of heaven and earth, and mixed with holy blood.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-12">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">12</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“How can this be?”⁠—“My son, sit here awhile.</span>
<br/>
<span>There is a lady in that primal place</span>
<br/>
<span>Where I was born, who with her ancient smile</span>
<br/>
<span>Made glad the sons of heaven. She loved to chase</span>
<br/>
<span>The springtime round the world. To all your race</span>
<br/>
<span>She was a sudden quivering in the wood</span>
<br/>
<span>Or a new thought springing in solitude.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-13">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">13</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Till, in prodigious hour, one swollen with youth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Blind from new-broken prison, knowing not</span>
<br/>
<span>Himself nor her, nor how to mate with truth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Lay with her in a strange and secret spot,</span>
<br/>
<span>Mortal with her immortal, and begot</span>
<br/>
<span>This walker-in-the-night.”⁠—“But did you know</span>
<br/>
<span>This mortal’s name?”⁠—“Why⁠ ⁠… it was long ago.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-14">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">14</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“And yet, I think, I near the name in mind;</span>
<br/>
<span>It was some famished boy whom tampering men</span>
<br/>
<span>Had crippled in their chains and made him blind</span>
<br/>
<span>Till their weak hour discovered them: and then</span>
<br/>
<span>He broke that prison. Softly!⁠—it comes again,</span>
<br/>
<span>I have it. It was Dymer, little One,</span>
<br/>
<span>Dymer’s the name. This spectre is his son.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-15">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">15</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then, after silence, came an answering shout</span>
<br/>
<span>From Dymer, glad and full: “Break off! Dismiss!</span>
<br/>
<span>Your watch is ended and your lamp is out.</span>
<br/>
<span>Unarm, unarm. Return into your bliss.</span>
<br/>
<span>You are relieved, Sir. I must deal with this</span>
<br/>
<span>As in my right. For either I must slay</span>
<br/>
<span>This beast or else be slain before the day.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-16">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">16</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“So mortal and so brave?” that other said,</span>
<br/>
<span>Smiling, and turned and looked in Dymer’s eyes,</span>
<br/>
<span>Scanning him over twice from heel to head</span>
<br/>
<span>—Like an old sergeant’s glance, grown battle-wise</span>
<br/>
<span>To know the points of men. At last, “Arise,”</span>
<br/>
<span>He said, “and wear my arms. I can withhold</span>
<br/>
<span>Nothing; for such an hour has been foretold.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-17">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">17</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Thereat, with lips as cold as the sea-surge,</span>
<br/>
<span>He kissed the youth, and bending on one knee</span>
<br/>
<span>Put all his armour off and let emerge</span>
<br/>
<span>Angelic shoulders marbled gloriously</span>
<br/>
<span>And feet like frozen speed and, plain to see,</span>
<br/>
<span>On his wide breast dark wounds and ancient scars,</span>
<br/>
<span>The battle honours of celestial wars.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-18">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">18</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then like a squire or brother born he dressed</span>
<br/>
<span>The young man in those plates, that dripped with cold</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon the inside, trickling over breast</span>
<br/>
<span>And shoulder: but without, the figured gold</span>
<br/>
<span>Gave to the tinkling ice its jagged hold,</span>
<br/>
<span>And the icy spear froze fast to Dymer’s hand.</span>
<br/>
<span>But where the other had stood he took his stand.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-19">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">19</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And searched the cloudy landscape. He could see</span>
<br/>
<span>Dim shapes like hills appearing, but the moon</span>
<br/>
<span>He sunk behind their backs. “When will it be?”</span>
<br/>
<span>Said Dymer: and the other, “Soon now, soon.</span>
<br/>
<span>For either he comes past us at night’s noon</span>
<br/>
<span>Or else between the night and the full day,</span>
<br/>
<span>And down there, on your left, will be his way.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-20">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">20</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>—“Swear that you will not come between us two</span>
<br/>
<span>Nor help me by a hair’s weight if I bow.”</span>
<br/>
<span>—“If you are he, if prophecies speak true,</span>
<br/>
<span>Not heaven and all the gods can help you now.</span>
<br/>
<span>This much I have been told, but know not how</span>
<br/>
<span>The fight will end. Who knows? I cannot tell.”</span>
<br/>
<span>“Sir, be content,” said Dymer. “I know well.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-21">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">21</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Thus Dymer stood to arms, with eyes that ranged</span>
<br/>
<span>Through aching darkness: stared upon it, so</span>
<br/>
<span>That all things, as he looked upon them, changed</span>
<br/>
<span>And were not as at first. But grave and slow</span>
<br/>
<span>The larger shade went sauntering to and fro,</span>
<br/>
<span>Humming at first the snatches of some tune</span>
<br/>
<span>That soldiers sing, but falling silent soon.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-22">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">22</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>Then came steps of dawn. And though they heard</span>
<br/>
<span>No milking cry in the fields, and no cock crew,</span>
<br/>
<span>And out of empty air no twittering bird</span>
<br/>
<span>Sounded from neighbouring hedges, yet they knew.</span>
<br/>
<span>Eastward the hollow blackness paled to blue,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then blue to white: and in the West the rare,</span>
<br/>
<span>Surviving stars blinked feebler in cold air.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-23">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">23</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>For beneath Dymer’s feet the sad half-light</span>
<br/>
<span>Discovering the new landscape oddly came,</span>
<br/>
<span>And forms grown half familiar in the night</span>
<br/>
<span>Looked strange again: no distance seemed the same.</span>
<br/>
<span>And now he could see clear and call by name</span>
<br/>
<span>Valleys and hills and woods. The phantoms all</span>
<br/>
<span>Took shape, and made a world, at morning’s call.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dumer-chapter-9-stanza-24">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">24</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>It was a ruinous land. The ragged stumps</span>
<br/>
<span>Of broken trees rose out of endless clay</span>
<br/>
<span>Naked of flower and grass: the slobbered humps</span>
<br/>
<span>Dividing the dead pools. Against the grey</span>
<br/>
<span>A shattered village gaped. But now the day</span>
<br/>
<span>Was very near them and the night was past,</span>
<br/>
<span>And Dymer understood and spoke at last.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-25">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">25</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Now I have wooed and won you, bridal earth,</span>
<br/>
<span>Beautiful world that lives, desire of men.</span>
<br/>
<span>All that the spirit intended at my birth</span>
<br/>
<span>This day shall be born into deed⁠ ⁠… and then</span>
<br/>
<span>The hard day’s labour comes no more again</span>
<br/>
<span>Forever. The pain dies. The longings cease.</span>
<br/>
<span>The ship glides under the green arch of peace.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-26">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">26</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>“Now drink me as the sun drinks up the mist.</span>
<br/>
<span>This is the hour to cease in, at full flood,</span>
<br/>
<span>That asks no gift form following years⁠—but, hist!</span>
<br/>
<span>Look yonder! At the corner of that wood⁠—</span>
<br/>
<span>Look! Look there where he comes! It shocks the blood,</span>
<br/>
<span>The first sight, eh? Now, sentinel, stand clear</span>
<br/>
<span>And save yourself. For God’s sake come not near.”</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-27">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">27</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>His full-grown spirit had moved without command</span>
<br/>
<span>Or spur of the will. Before he knew, he found</span>
<br/>
<span>That he was leaping forward spear in hand</span>
<br/>
<span>To where that ashen brute wheeled slowly round</span>
<br/>
<span>Nosing, and set its ears towards the sounds,</span>
<br/>
<span>The pale and heavy brute, rough-ridged behind,</span>
<br/>
<span>And full of eyes, clinking in scaly rind.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-28">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">28</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And now ten paces parted them: and here</span>
<br/>
<span>He halted. He thrust forward his left foot,</span>
<br/>
<span>Poising his straightened arms, and launched the spear,</span>
<br/>
<span>And gloriously it sang. But now the brute</span>
<br/>
<span>Lurched forward: and he saw the weapon shoot</span>
<br/>
<span>Beyond it and fall quivering on the field.</span>
<br/>
<span>Dymer drew out his sword and raised the shield.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-29">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">29</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>What now my friends? You get no more from me</span>
<br/>
<span>Of Dymer. He goes from us. What he felt</span>
<br/>
<span>Or saw from henceforth no man knows but he</span>
<br/>
<span>Who has himself gone through the jungle belt</span>
<br/>
<span>Of dying, into peace. That angel knelt</span>
<br/>
<span>Far off and watched them close but could not see</span>
<br/>
<span>Their battle. All was ended suddenly.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-30">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">30</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>A leap⁠—a cry⁠—flurry of steel and claw,</span>
<br/>
<span>Then silence. As before, the morning light</span>
<br/>
<span>And the same brute crouched yonder; and he saw</span>
<br/>
<span>Under its feet, broken and bent and white,</span>
<br/>
<span>The ruined limbs of Dymer, killed outright</span>
<br/>
<span>All in a moment, all his story done.</span>
<br/>
<span>… But that same moment came the rising sun;</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-31">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">31</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And thirty miles to westward, the grey cloud</span>
<br/>
<span>Flushed into answering pink. Long shadows streamed</span>
<br/>
<span>From every hill, and the low-hanging shroud</span>
<br/>
<span>Of mist along the valleys broke and steamed</span>
<br/>
<span>Gold-flecked to heaven. Far off the armour gleamed</span>
<br/>
<span>Like glass upon the dead man’s back. But now</span>
<br/>
<span>The sentinel ran forward, hand to brow.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-32">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">32</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And staring. For between him and the sun</span>
<br/>
<span>He saw that country clothed with dancing flowers</span>
<br/>
<span>Where flower had never grown; and one by one</span>
<br/>
<span>The splintered woods, as if from April showers,</span>
<br/>
<span>Were softening into green. In the leafy towers</span>
<br/>
<span>Rose the cool, sudden chattering on the tongues</span>
<br/>
<span>Of happy birds with morning in their lungs.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-33">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">33</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>The wave of flowers came breaking round his feet,</span>
<br/>
<span>Crocus and bluebell, primrose, daffodil</span>
<br/>
<span>Shivering with moisture: and the air grew sweet</span>
<br/>
<span>Within his nostrils, changing heart and will,</span>
<br/>
<span>Making him laugh. He looked, and Dymer still</span>
<br/>
<span>Lay dead among the flowers and pinned beneath</span>
<br/>
<span>The brute: but as he looked he held his breath;</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chanter-9-stanza-34">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">34</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>For when he had gazed hard with steady eyes</span>
<br/>
<span>Upon the brute, behold, no brute was there,</span>
<br/>
<span>But someone towering large against the skies,</span>
<br/>
<span>A wing’d and sworded shaped, whose foam-like hair</span>
<br/>
<span>Lay white about its shoulders, and the air</span>
<br/>
<span>That came from it was burning hot. The whole</span>
<br/>
<span>Pure body brimmed with life, as a full bowl.</span>
</p>
</section>
<section id="dymer-chapter-9-stanza-35">
<header>
<p epub:type="ordinal">35</p>
</header>
<p>
<span>And from the distant corner of day’s birth</span>
<br/>
<span>He heard clear trumpets blowing and bells ring,</span>
<br/>
<span>A noise of great good coming into earth</span>
<br/>
<span>And such a music as the dumb would sing</span>
<br/>
<span>If Balder had led back the blameless spring</span>
<br/>
<span>With victory, with the voice of charging spears,</span>
<br/>
<span>And in white lands long-lost Saturnian years.</span>
</p>
</section>
</article>
</section>
<section id="colophon" epub:type="colophon backmatter">
<header>
<h2 epub:type="title">Colophon</h2>
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epub:type="z3998:publisher-logo se:image.color-depth.black-on-transparent"/>
</header>
<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Poetry</i><br/>
was published between <time>1919</time> and <time>1926</time> by<br/>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis"><abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">C. S.</abbr> Lewis</a>.</p>
<p>This ebook was produced for<br/>
<a href="https://standardebooks.org/">Standard Ebooks</a><br/>
by<br/>
<a href="https://github.com/thewchan">Matt Chan</a>,<br/>
and is based on a transcription produced in <time>1999</time> by<br/>
<b>An Anonymous Volunteer</b>, <b epub:type="z3998:personal-name">Matt Chan</b>, and <b epub:type="z3998:personal-name">David Widger</b><br/>
for<br/>
<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003">Project Gutenberg</a><br/>
and on digital scans from<br/>
<a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/c-s-lewis/poetry#page-scans">various sources</a>.</p>
<p>The cover page is adapted from<br/>
<i epub:type="se:name.visual-art.painting">Lights of Other Days</i>,<br/>
a painting completed in <time>1906</time> by<br/>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Peto">John <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">F.</abbr> Peto</a>.<br/>
The cover and title pages feature the<br/>
<b epub:type="se:name.visual-art.typeface">League Spartan</b> and <b epub:type="se:name.visual-art.typeface">Sorts Mill Goudy</b><br/>
typefaces created in <time>2014</time> and <time>2009</time> by<br/>
<a href="https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/">The League of Moveable Type</a>.</p>
<p>The first edition of this ebook was released on<br/>
<time datetime="2022-07-27T20:20:06Z">July 27, 2022, 8:20 <abbr class="eoc">p.m.</abbr></time><br/>
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at<br/>
<a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/c-s-lewis/poetry">standardebooks.org/ebooks/c-s-lewis/poetry</a>.</p>
<p>The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at <a href="https://standardebooks.org/">standardebooks.org</a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="uncopyright" epub:type="copyright-page backmatter">
<h2 epub:type="title">Uncopyright</h2>
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:verse">
<p>
<span>May you do good and not evil.</span>
<br/>
<span>May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.</span>
<br/>
<span>May you share freely, never taking more than you give.</span>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Copyright pages exist to tell you that you <em>can’t</em> do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The United States public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the United States to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission.</p>
<p>Copyright laws are different all over the world, and the source text or artwork in this ebook may still be copyrighted in other countries. If you’re not located in the United States, you must check your local laws before using this ebook. Standard Ebooks makes no representations regarding the copyright status of the source text or artwork in this ebook in any country other than the United States.</p>
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