Oh you who loved the song so well, Do you not hear the throstle’s note? Nor heed the lovesome light that fell As warm five thousand years ago, when Solomon, the wise king, wrote? “Sweet,” wrote he. Yes, the light is sweet! And maddening sweet to walk in Spring: Yet is the pleasure incomplete-- How should the living understand the melodies that dead throats sing? Thinker and poet clutch in vain The secret of a laughing rill, And Shakespeare’s self could never gain The message blown so mockingly by trumpet of a daffodil. Dear lad, for you I will not call, Nor let a foolish dread be born. A thousand years is still too small To learn the secrets you must learn, ere you arise on Doomsday morn. For you have set your ear to earth To list the growing of the flowers: And catch the strains of Death and Birth: And take the honey that is stored by all the flitting bee-like hours. And you must put to memory The silver music of the stars That raineth down so silently, And all the mighty harmony scrolled on the sky in glittering bars. The music that no man can make, The colours that he cannot see, These out of darkness you shall take And nourish up your growing soul with manna of their mystery. And then when you awake again (And I have slept a little too), How we shall rise to pace anew An earth--where every dream is true, and nothing is unknown but pain. DEFIANCE I saw the orchards whitening To Easter in late Lent. Now struck of hell’s own lightning With branches broken and bent Behold the tall trees rent:-- Beaten with iron rain! And ever in my brain To every shell that’s sent Sounds back this small refrain:-- “You foolish shells, come kill me, Blacken my limbs with flame: I saw the English orchards (And so may die content) All white before I came!” THE ORCHARDS, THE SEA, AND THE GUNS Of sounds which haunt me, these Until I die Shall live. First the trees, Swaying and singing in the moonless night. (The wind being wild) And I A wakeful child, That lay and shivered with a strange delight. Second--less sweet but thrilling as the first-- The midnight roar Of waves upon the shore Of Rossall dear: The rhythmic surge and burst (The gusty rain Flung on the pane!) I loved to hear. And now another sound Wilder than wind or sea, When on the silent night I hear resound In mad delight The guns.... They bark the whole night through; And though I fear, Knowing what work they do, I somehow thrill to hear. DYING IN SPRING Lo, now do I behold Sunshine and greenery And Death together rolled-- Yet not in mockery. Life was a faithful friend; Shall I make other of that dark brother Whom God doth send?