Take hold of the eternal pendulum,
And bid the sun of our desire to stand.

Who can take comfort to foresee himself
On unknown stages playing other parts?
It is but treading through a wider maze,
A wearier cycle. Would the butterfly
Feel lesser anguish, as it fell, to know

Some egg in which it wrapped the spark of life
Was ripening in the dark, some day to break
Its natal bonds and walk the earth enrobed
With green and golden fur? Or is it worth
The caterpillar's knowing, as it shrinks

Within the coffin it has built, and dies

Between the straightening walls, that they shall crack
In ruin days or weeks or ages hence,

And issuing from the dust a thing of light-
Not it shall drink the morning air and wave
Its crimson banners in the sun?

A life

Of endless deaths, an immortality

Of partings, is it worth being gifted with?
Such is the life of nations; they last on

In plant-like continuity, while the men

Who make them fall like leaves and are renewed.
We call ourselves the English people now,
But they who fought till sundown on that hill
In Sussex all those hundred years ago,

And died where they had fought, and never knew

The end of it, what had they happier been
To hear of the great Charter, and the deeds
Of that famed Parliament that drew the sword
Meteor-like forth in shuddering Europe's gaze,
And spilt the blood of kings?

Let no man say

Life may yield other loves; because we loved
At that age when to love is to be lost

In them we love, and not with narrow eyes
Το purse up faults and merits. In that age
We loved although we knew not how to love,
Before the buds of sense had learnt to give
Their sweetness up in fiery-fatal blooms
And fruit forbidden. Childhood treads the heights
Whither nor friends nor loves of later days
Can reach, when friends are but acquaintances,
And love's clear stream is muddied o'er with lust.

Forever and forever and forever

Gone are the days and nights of fairyland;

Days that were cups of summer, sacred nights
Too sweet for slumber, hours like tears, on which
The moonbeams peeped between the shuttered blinds
Like children at a feast they cannot share.
(O memories! Oh, to steal from paradise
One more such moment, and then be no more I!)
Those years and loves are gone, not to come back
Till man can turn the wheels of life, and draw
Creation in the thoroughfares of time.

Baldur

HOLIDAYS

As the tree puts forth its flowers,
Time at certain seasons dowers

Men with moments so delicious
They forget all former hours.

Magic hints that wake the mind
From the sleep that seals mankind—
Raptures, tumults, yearnings, visions,

Light that breaks upon the blind.

Charmed in circles of the sea,
Island of love's mystery,

There are old, pathetic secrets
Only known to you and me.

Children of the summertide,

Free from care and wrath and pride,
We were happy while we wandered
Up and down the long sea-side.

Round the seagull's rocky home

Azure waves through fretted foam

Glanced and glowed like lancet windows,

Sapphire in an ivory dome.

Far afield a rain of light

Washed the utmost sea-wave white;

Heaved and rolled in blinding splendor, League on league of chrysolite.

Did we tread on beaten ground?

Were the waves that rocked us round
Lapping on some isle of wonder
Dropped within the coral sound?

Fainter than a cloud, the moon
Floated up the sky too soon:

Round us on the brooding valley

Slept the summer afternoon.

Every golden hour went by
Like a bead of tracery

Strung upon an Indian necklace
To enchant a sultan's eye.

How the stars, that hallowed night,
Seemed to pulse with our delight,
Notes of some mysterious music
That we dared not read aright.

Every star that downward fell
Struck far off a mystic knell:

Then the whole wide heaven about us

Boomed to silence, like a bell.

Something softer in the air
Whispered to our hearts beware:
It was an enchanted region,
And we might not tarry there.

Holidays

Long we sate and never spake,
Lest the light illusion break.

We had fallen asleep together,
And we could not bear to wake.

Never to that haunted shore
Bid me bend my voyage more.

Bitter thorns are left to harvest
Where we gathered blooms before.

FINIS

Like a great sunset drawn beyond the sea,
A visionary landscape framed in fire

Of earthquake cities, toppling tower and spire Downward through rifts and gulfs of phantasy.

So pass the memories of old love from me,
Never to thrill again that inward lyre
Aeolian, whose sad strains of sick desire
These grosser measures breathe imperfectly.

There is no love but first love; all beside
Is passion's lightning or affection's moon.
I floated once on that triumphant tide.

But stranded now among the wrecks and spars
I watch the night succeed the afternoon,
And bide my sleep beneath the ancient stars.

Allen Upward