CLOUDS Down the blue night the unending columns press They say that the Dead die not, but remain And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, And men, coming and going on the earth. THE PACIFIC, October 1913 MUTABILITY They say there's a high windless world and strange, Out of the wash of days and temporal tide, Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide, Eterna corpora, subject to no change. There the sure suns of these pale shadows move; Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile; Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile, Cling, and are borne into the night apart. The laugh dies with the lips, ' Love with the lover. SOUTH KENSINGTON-MAKAWELI, 1913 THE BUSY HEART Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted) I'll think of Love in books, Love without end; Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain ; And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; And the young heavens, forgetful after rain; And evening hush, broken by homing wings; And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy, That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, One after one, like tasting a sweet food. I have need to busy my heart with quietude. |