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Read Ebook: The Old Way by Marlowe Stephen
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Ebook has 126 lines and 5650 words, and 3 pages
After the grim daylight, Night-- Night and the stars and the sea! Only the sea, and the stars And the star-shown sails and spars-- Naught else in the night for me!
Over the northern height, Light-- Light and the dawn of a day With nothing for me but a breast Laboured with love's unrest, And the irk of an idle May!
Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb. Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire. Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust, Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win, Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife, And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid, Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.
Between the dusk of a summer night And the dawn of a summer day, We caught at a mood as it passed in flight, And we bade it stoop and stay. And what with the dawn of night began With the dusk of day was done; For that is the way of woman and man, When a hazard has made them one.
Arc upon arc, from shade to shine, The World went thundering free; And what was his errand but hers and mine-- The lords of him, I and she? O, it's die we must, but it's live we can, And the marvel of earth and sun Is all for the joy of woman and man And the longing that makes them one.
I took a hansom on to-day For a round I used to know-- That I used to take for a woman's sake In a fever of to-and-fro.
There were the landmarks one and all-- What did they stand to show? Street and square and river were there-- Where was the antient woe?
Never a hint of a challenging hope Nor a hope laid sick and low, But a longing dead as its kindred sped A thousand years ago!
Only a freakish wisp of hair?-- Nay, but its wildest, its most frolic whorl Stands for a slim, enamoured, sweet-fleshed girl! And so, a tangle of dream and charm and fun, Its every crook a promise and a snare, Its every dowle, or genially gadding Or crisply curled, Heartening and madding, Empales a novel and peculiar world Of right, essential fantasies, And shining acts as yet undone, But in these wonder-working days Soon, soon to ask our sovran Lord, the Sun, For countenance and praise, As of the best his storying eye hath seen, And his vast memory can parallel, Among the darling victories-- Beneficent, beautiful, inexpressible-- Of life on time!-- Yet have they flashed and been In millions, since 'twas his to bring The heaven-creating Spring, An angel of adventure and delight, In all her beauty and all her strength and worth, With her great guerdons of romance and spright, And those high needs that fill the flesh with might, Home to the citizens of this good, green earth.
Poor souls--they have but time and place To play their transient little play And sing their singular little song, Ere they are rushed away Into the antient, undisclosing Night; And none is left to tell of the clear eyes That filled them with God's grace, And turned the iron skies to skies of gold! None; but the sweetest She herself grows old-- Grows old, and dies; And, but for such a lovely snatch of hair As this, none--none could guess, or know That She was kind and fair, And he had nights and days beyond compare-- How many dusty and silent years ago!
This is the moon of roses, The lovely and flowerful time; And, as white roses climb the wall, Your dreams about me climb.
This is the moon of roses, Glad and golden and blue; And, as red roses drink of the sun, My dreams they drink of you.
This is the moon of roses! The cherishing South-West blows, And life, dear heart, for me and you, O, life's a rejoicing rose.
June, and a warm, sweet rain; June, and the call of a bird: To a lover in pain What lovelier word?
Two of each other fain Happily heart on heart: So in the wind and rain Spring bears his part!
O, to be heart on heart One with the warm June rain, God with us from the start, And no more pain!
It was a bowl of roses: There in the light they lay, Languishing, glorying, glowing Their life away.
And the soul of them rose like a presence, Into me crept and grew, And filled me with something--some one-- O, was it you?
Your feet as glad And light as a dove's homing wings, you came-- Came with your sweets to fill my hands, My sense with your perfume.
We closed with lips Grown weary and fain with longing from afar, The while your grave, enamoured eyes Drank down the dream in mine.
Till the great need So lovely and so instant grew, it seemed The embodied Spirit of the Spring Hung at me, heart on heart.
A world of leafage murmurous and a-twinkle; The green, delicious plenitude of June; Love and laughter and song The blue day long Going to the same glad, golden tune-- The same glad tune!
Clouds on the dim, delighting skies a-sprinkle; Poplars black in the wake of a setting moon; Love and languor and sleep And the star-sown deep Going to the same good, golden tune-- The same good tune!
XXX
I send you roses--red, like love, And white, like death, sweet friend: Born in your bosom to rejoice, Languish, and droop, and end.
If the white roses tell of death, Let the red roses mend The talk with true stories of love Unchanging till the end.
Red and white roses, love and death-- What else is left to send? For what is life but love, the means, And death, true Wife, the end?
These glad, these great, these goodly days Bewildering hope, outrunning praise, The Earth, renewed by the great Sun's longing, Utters her joy in a million ways!
What is there left, sweet Soul and true-- What, for us and our dream to do? What but to take this mighty Summer As it were made for me and you?
Take it and live it beam by beam, Motes of light on a gleaming stream, Glare by glare and glory on glory Through to the ash of this flaming dream!
The downs, like uplands in Eden, Gleam in an afterglow Like a rose-world ruining earthwards-- Mystical, wistful, slow!
Near and afar in the leafage, That last glad call to the nest! And the thought of you hangs and triumphs With Hesper low in the west!
Till the song and the light and the colour, The passion of earth and sky, Are blent in a rapture of boding Of the death we should one day die.
The time of the silence Of birds is upon us: Rust in the chestnut leaf, Dust in the stubble: The turn of the Year And the call to decay.
Stately and splendid, The Summer passes: Sad with satiety, Sick with fulfilment; Spent and consumed, But august till the end.
There was no kiss that day? No intimate Yea-and-Nay, No sweets in hand, no tender, lingering touch? None of those desperate, exquisite caresses, So instant--O, so brief!--and yet so much, The thought of the swiftest lifts and blesses? Nor any one of those great royal words, Those sovran privacies of speech, Frank as the call of April birds, That, whispered, live a life of gold Among the heart's still sainted memories, And irk, and thrill, and ravish, and beseech, Even when the dream of dreams in death's a-cold? No, there was none of these, Dear one, and yet-- O, eyes on eyes! O, voices breaking still, For all the watchful will, Into a kinder kindness than seemed due From you to me, and me to you! And that hot-eyed, close-throated, blind regret Of woman and man baulked and debarred the blue!-- No kiss--no kiss that day? Nay, rather, though we seemed to wear the rue, Sweet friend, how many, and how goodly--say!
Sing to me, sing, and sing again, My glad, great-throated nightingale: Sing, as the good sun through the rain-- Sing, as the home-wind in the sail!
Sing to me life, and toil, and time, O bugle of dawn, O flute of rest! Sing, and once more, as in the prime, There shall be naught but seems the best.
And sing me at the last of love: Sing that old magic of the May, That makes the great world laugh and move As lightly as our dream to-day!
It came, the news, like a fire in the night, That life and its best were done; And there was never so dazed a wretch In the beat of the living sun.
I read the news, and the terms of the news Reeled random round my brain Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom Of a bluefly in the pane.
So I went for the news to the house of the news, But the words were left unsaid, For the face of the house was blank with blinds, And I knew that she was dead.
'Twas in a world of living leaves That we two reaped and bound our sheaves: They were of white roses and red, And in the scything they were dead.
Now the high Autumn flames afield, And what is all his golden yield To that we took, and sheaved, and bound In the green dusk that gladdened round?
Yet must the memory grieve and ache Of that we did for dear love's sake, But may no more under the sun, Being, like our summer, spent and done.
These were the woods of wonder We found so close and boon, When the bride-month in her beauty Lay mouth to mouth with June.
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